


When the Tides Held the Moon

by Mudblood428 (VKelleyArt)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: 1900s England, Asthmatic Simon Snow, Fighting oppression and winning, First Kiss, First Time, Forgery, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Love in the water, M/M, MerMay, Merman Baz, Miracles, Murder, Revenge, Romance, Simon POV only, Skinny Dipping, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Era AU, freak shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VKelleyArt/pseuds/Mudblood428
Summary: Simon Snow needs a job, though most would argue he needs a friend. When he finally lands work as a day labourer at Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, he's suddenly got the pick of the rarest company in Blackpool, including a bearded lady, a pretty contortionist, The Tattooed Australian, and a slightly unhinged fire-breather. With friends like these, sideshow life would be interesting enough, but everything changes after he comes face-to-face with the mysterious and beautiful occupant in the last tent."In a counterfeit world, he’s the only thing that’s real."
Relationships: Dev/Niall (Simon Snow), Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 866
Kudos: 2089





	1. A Very Special Acquisition

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my husband, Mr. Mudblood428.
> 
> You are the tide and my life preserver. ❤️

I don’t much like talking about myself unless I have to. I tend to feel more clearly than I think and think more clearly than I speak, which is a few more hurdles than I’d like when it comes to introducing myself to strangers. 

Or in this case, answering a job advert.

Ebb knows this about me. Or knew, I suppose. She’d told me, with so many untrustworthy types around and about, you can always use a witness—someone who’ll prove you’re worth what you say you are. I’ve never had anyone but her around to do me the honor, which is why she wrote the letter before she died.

 _Not to worry, Simon. I put in all the best bits._

“States here your prior employ was at Watford Iron & Steel,” says the man with the pipe, skimming what Ebb wrote on my behalf. 

“Yes, sir,” I confirm.

He peers over the paper to cast me an amiable grin. “Well then. Making steam engines, were you? Or horseshoes?”

“Swords, actually.” 

“Capital!” he exclaims, visibly impressed. “A bladesmith, eh?” 

“Well, weaponry. Our works went to the Royal Army and Navy, but mine went to the heavy cavalry swords, cast steel guns, barrel rifles and whatnot,” I explain. “I were pretty good with the detailing. So they says.”

“A regular member of the skilled class, then, aren’t you. I’m a bit of an artist myself, you know,” says the man, stroking his thin mustache. “Painting mostly, though my talents are put to spare use these days, busy as I am.” He sets the letter down and puffs on his pipe. “Ironwork seems an honest living for a strong, young bloke like yourself. Whatever made you leave?”

I glance down and pick the dirt out from under my nails to avoid the cloud of pipe smoke between us. “Bad lungs, sir,” I mumble. “Born with them. Couldn’t stay around the boiler smoke for very long before I'd be having a fit. They let me go when I started coughing blood on the forges.”

The man grimaces, setting his mustache off kilter. 

“But I’m fit enough for common labor,” I add quickly. “I can carry ninety stone long distances if I take my time—” 

“Yes, yes, the letter concurs,” he drawls, glancing back down at Ebb’s writing. “Says your hands are strong, your back’s straight, and you’ve a good head for fixing things.”

“That’s right, sir.”

He nods and taps his pipe into the dish. “And what’s your family think of it? Their lad joining a seaside raree show,” he says bluntly. He’s insulting his own operation, and I can’t tell what he‘s implying. He might be curious about whether I think working for a pit show is beneath me. Maybe he thinks it’s beneath him to run one.

I shrug. “Haven’t got a family.”

“Who’s this Ebb person, then?” he asks, holding up the paper.

My fingers touch the gold cross hanging from my neck, and thankfully, the painful twinge in my chest doesn’t show up on my face. “A kind heart who took me in when I was a scrap. She passed last month.” 

“My condolences,” he says, and I watch, my heart in my throat, as he folds up the letter and tucks it into his breast pocket. Clearing his throat, he rises to his feet, plucks his frock coat and hat off the wooden hooks behind him, and slides into both. 

“You’ve come at a good time, Mister Snow,” he says, inspecting himself in the Cheval mirror. “Blackpool has become the standard bearer for seaside recreation, you know. My father always intended for this establishment to travel—while he was living we used to pitch our tents in Brighton Beach as well—but the accommodations here are unmatched during the summer months, and quite frankly, who can suffer the effort of moving?”

He delicately places a black silk top hat on his greased-back hair. “This establishment requires many hands, Mister Snow, and as you can see”—he holds up his two very clean hands, one holding a set of white gloves and the other holding a Derringer pistol—“mine are full. The attractions pitch in, but they’re worn through after a long day in front of the crowds.”

“The ‘attractions,’ sir?”

He pockets the gloves and moves the pistol to a pocket inside his coat. “The oddities, the collection, whatever you want to call them. The freaks.” 

“Oh.”

“I can certainly use a lad of your constitution. Granted, not for more than 20 shillings a week, but I can promise you a bed, decent meals, and the rarest company this side of the Thames, if that offer tempts you.”

“It does, sir,” I say. I’ve been looking for work in Blackpool for a solid week, and this place was the end of the line. “I’d be proper grateful.”

He smacks the table. “Capital!”

Striding toward my chair, he adjusts his cuffs, then extends his open palm toward me to shake on it. I take it and match his hard grip with my own. Ebb always said when you’ve got no familiars, people are gonna size you up with whatever measuring stick you give them, so you’d best give a big one.

“Congratulations, Mister Snow,” he exclaims, grinning widely. “Welcome to Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities!”

“Thank you, Mister… Mage?”

I pull on my cap as he claps me on the shoulder and steers me out the door. 

“Please, call me Davy. I’ll give you the grand tour.”

___

The carnival sits on the interior of Blackpool’s promenade, made up of seven large wagons that unpack into nine tents (eight small, one large). Davy points out that each tent is decorated with its own theme, matched to whichever odd occupant belongs to it. To reach the tents, however, you have to walk through “The Menagerie” first, which is chockablock with odd-smelling taxidermied creatures that look like the failed experiments of Doctor Frankenstein—this one with an extra wing, that one with clubbed limbs, each christened with some bizarre name or other to stoke shock and awe. There’s a Chimera in there that looks more like someone lopped off an assortment of stuffed animal heads and sewed them onto a fur-lined steamer trunk. The curiosity next to it is even larger—red, winged, and sagging from age. The sign on the stake says it’s a dragon, but up close I can see the paint peeling off its metal “scales.”

Christ, the upper classes are a gullible lot.

The man—Davy—talks like the gentry, even though loose threads hang off the brim of his top hat and the fabric on his sleeve buttons has worn away. He looks a bit of a dandy, actually, his bright green clothes distracting from his scuffed boots and dingy pocket square. 

How does a working class showman start a caravan of freaks in the first place?

He takes me to meet them next. The freaks, that is. They’re all relaxing in a common area behind the tents around a sad little fire pit, and at first sight, I instantly realise what Davy meant by “rarest company this side of the Thames.” Every single one of them is so… _interesting_. There’s a brown-skinned bearded lady playing Bread and Honey with a very pretty yellow-haired contortionist (I assume, given she’s lounging with a leg tucked behind her head). 

“Today marked the end of our spring season, which is why the attractions are still dressed in costume,” he explains, like we’re talking about them in a separate room instead of standing right next to them.

“This here’s Agatha, our Human Rubber Band, and this is Penelope, our Bearded Lady and costumer,” says Davy, gesturing to the blonde first, then to her cardplaying cohort. 

“Call me Penny,” says the bearded one, grinning warmly and putting out her hand. I hold her fingers just under her large purple ring and give it a squeeze, which she returns confidently before I follow suit with Agatha’s hand. 

The others introduce themselves with varying degrees of interest in me as I walk the circle around where they’re sitting. There’s Shepard, a dark-skinned bloke covered in ink whose stage name is “The Tattooed Australian.” When “The Pixie” greets me—a twenty inch-tall church bell named Trixie who only stops talking long enough to size me up—her fingers get all but completely lost in my palm. 

There’s a fire-eater here named Fiona as well, but when I tip my cap to her, she just sneers at me.

“Oi, pull up a stool,” says one half of a set of fake conjoined twins named Dev and Niall. Dev sits alone in a giant shirt meant for two heads, while Niall relaxes in the next chair wearing a set of trousers meant for four legs. I reckon the act takes a tick to wear off because Dev’s left hand pours gin into a tin cup held by Niall’s right. I accept the offered libations with a short bow.

“‘Fraid not,” Davy laughs lightly, taking the cup from me and setting it on a leather trunk. “We’re not quite through with our _tour_.”

Everyone halts in the middle of whatever they’re doing to look at us. Even The Pixie goes quiet. 

I’ve no time to figure out what they mean by it before Davy’s arm is around my shoulder steering me away from the fire.

“We are embarking on a month-long hiatus, Mister Snow. Thirty-one days. It’s part of a larger strategy to reopen our gates to a much larger and more sophisticated audience,” he says while we walk. “As you can see, my production is in variable states of disrepair and needs some… refreshing. I’d like to rely on you to sprog up the place, if you get my meaning.” He gestures vaguely around us. “A fresh coat of paint, the rotting frameworks replaced, the canvases cleaned, that sort of thing.”

I nod. Looking past the faded drapes and peeling paint, a lively, colorful carnival takes shape in my imagination. I’d wager there’s not much difference between casting iron and restoring a traveling act. In either case, you can’t pour the mould until the cast is set.

“I can do that,” I say. 

“Capital,” he exclaims. Then leaning in, he adds loftily, “The illustrations and the letterings are my own hand, you know.” 

I’m about to compliment his work when he stops us in front of the tent at the end of the row. The largest one.

“Now then. It’s a new century, my boy. Audiences are far more discerning now about their amusements than they were when you were at Watford hammering steel,” he says gravely. “But my show is on the cusp of a Renaissance thanks to a very... _very_ special acquisition I’ve just made, which I am going to show you now.”

Glancing quickly around us, he steps close, all skilamalink and suspicion. Looks me in the eye. Without his top hat, we’re likely the same height. 

“You must first promise me, Mister Snow, that what you are about to see remains a secret. No one must know. Not until the time is right,” he murmurs. ”Do you agree?”

I jerk my head yes. “Won’t tell a soul.”

Stepping back, Davy takes the Derringer out of his coat, and for a quick, terrifying moment I wonder if this has all been a ruse for him to murder me and make off with my last last pound. He catches my eye and quickly points the pistol skyward. “No, no, don’t upset yourself, lad,” he says. “It’s just for... persuasion. Nothing more.”

“‘Persuasion’?”

When he pulls the tent flap back for us to enter, something inside sheds a dim blue light across the dirt floor. He goes in first, then with a wave, beckons me to follow.

In the center of the tent is an enormous—and full—glass tank set inside an even more enormous iron cage propped atop a steel platform. The bars wrap around the glass save for a single side facing the entrance, which gives the effect of looking through a very large window. Someone’s opened the canvas ceiling to let in the light; it reflects off the pool, casting fluid patterns on the wall as if the whole tent’s been dropped in the Irish Sea. 

The water agitates the moment we step inside. Whatever’s in the tank is concealed in a swirling storm of churning waves and bubbles. I’m behind Davy when I hear a sound so loud—like a thunderclap—I nearly leap back outside.

Something in there… something _large_... has collided with the glass, sending a spray of water over the top that slaps the ground at our feet.

My lungs tighten up. That’s what they do when I’m nervous or afraid, and in this moment, I'm about to tap a kidney all over my last clean set of pants.

“There’s no sense exhausting yourself! It’d take a cannon to break that glass,” Davy shouts loudly to the tank, knocking on the iron bars with his pistol. “I’m not going to hurt you! In fact, I’ve brought you your very first visitor!” 

The moment he stops shouting, the churning subsides. 

With my heart drumming in my ears, I hazard a step forward and squint into the bubbles as they dissipate.

There. It’s pressed into the corner of the tank like a fox in a hole, its face hidden under a swirl of black hair. I watch, stunned speechless, as it slides slowly to the bottom.

It’s... a man.

No. Not a man.

Oh, God blind me.

It… _he…_ has no legs. In their place is a long glimmering fish tail, blue and shiny as the open ocean and speckled in silver. The rest of him is pale as seafoam. 

It takes ages, but I finally find my voice. “Is… is that…?” I stammer.

Davy sets his hands on his hips and beams at the creature. “Isn’t he magnificent?”

I rake a hand through my hair, knocking my cap to the dirt floor. “Then he really is a… he’s a…”

“A merman, yes,” he replies. “This is it, Mister Snow. My most valuable possession. I cannot _begin_ to recount the trials I’ve endured to get him.” He sighs dramatically. “For years I’ve hunted, studying centuries of folklore, mapping every sighting, and practically charting the bloody stars for signs of them, but fate rewarded my persistence at last. Just look at him!”

I look closer. 

The merman’s hair drifts away to reveal a pale face. His mouth and eyes are gray against his skin and pinched in a glare so piercing I shrink back. He’s leering at me like I’m the one who put him in there.

“I tracked them all the way from the Isle of Man, you know,” Davy leans over to tell me.

“ _Them_? There’s more?”

“Certainly! I very nearly had _two_ merpeople, had the other one not decided to have a go at me.” Davy lifts up the leg of his trousers to show me, not his stockings, but a set of five raised welts. They run the length of his calf and disappear into his boots. 

The man—merman—in the tank turns away from us. The pointed crest of fin on his back folds in as he slumps against the glass.

“He try to kill you?” I ask.

“ _She_ did, yes. The mermaid didn’t make it, regrettably,” he says, sounding only slightly dissatisfied. “Put up such a fight, I had to harpoon one to keep the other. And once she was dead, I daresay it stunned this one so well that he fell into my net quite easily. Of course, it took all my chloroform, both my horses, and several of the other attractions to drag him out and get him in the tank, but now that he’s here…” 

The creature is curled tightly into the corner now, holding himself like he’s in pain. A hand grips his hair and I can make out thin webbing between his fingers. Across his side is a red stripe, ribbed where the rope must have held him. 

“When we reopen, this merman will be the most coveted and admired attraction in the world,” says Davy, breathlessly. “And you’re going to help make sure my production is worthy of its star, aren’t you?”

I open my mouth to answer, but I don’t know what to say or think. I haven’t drawn a full breath since the moment I saw the merman’s face emerge from the bubbles and he pinned me with his eyes.

Davy’s stopped heeding my presence anyway.

He rests the pistol over his heart, his eyes glistening, and whispers, “Capital!”

___

I’m shuffling my way toward my sleeping quarters when I hear a voice call out to me from the fire pit. “Oi, new chap! We’re smothering a parrot over here. Care to have some?” shouts Penny, holding up a green bottle.

I tip my cap obligingly and walk over to where the rest of the company is sitting. The crowd’s a bit smaller now, just Penny, Agatha, Shepard and Fiona. When I take a seat on the steamer trunk beside the pit, Penny hands me the absinthe bottle and a tin cup. “Help yourself, mate,” she says, smiling. 

I smile back, but the cup stalls on the way to my lips. “Penny… where’s your beard?” I ask.

All three of them snort a laugh at me. “Surely you don’t expect me to wear that dead animal on my face all day long, do you?” groans Penny, leaning back and crossing her legs. “It’s summer for pity’s sake.”

“You wear it well enough. I couldn’t tell you weren’t an actual bearded lady.” I take a sip of the absinthe, and it goes down my throat like lava. 

“None of us is an actual anything,” says Shepard, who I suddenly realise is speaking with an American accent even though his stage name is 'The Tattooed Australian.' “We’re just your basic band of theatrical idiots, and these crowds don’t take much convincing.”

“Now, now, I will say,” Penny chimes in with great authority, “Fiona is a tried and true fire-breather.“

“Especially if swearing like a sailor and smoking like a goddamn chimney counts as breathing fire,” scoffs Shepard, to which Fiona delivers a sneering, “Sod off, ye great nearsighted eedjit.” Shepard, Penny, and Agatha dissolve into a fit of tipsy laughter.

“Ooh! Speaking of which,” giggles Agatha, glancing in my direction, “fancy seein’ a trick?”

I shrug. “Depends on the trick.”

“Watch this,” she says. I gaze at her over the rim of my tin cup as she pulls out a cigarette and sets it between her lips. She motions to Shepard, who digs around in his pocket and produces a match. She takes it, places it between her toes, and I nearly choke on my absinthe watching her strike the match and light her cigarette with her foot. Penny and Shepard start clapping and whistling while Agatha inhales deeply, the cigarette tip glowing red.

With a short bow, she takes it from her lips (with no help from her toes), and offers it to me with a smooth, “Here you go, love.” She smiles prettily behind the veil of smoke surrounding her face. 

I lean away from her. “That were brilliant, but no, thanks,” I chuckle. “These lungs don’t much care for smoke.”

She shrugs and puts out the fag.

“How’d you lot wind up in a traveling pit show, anyways? None of you seems especially... _abnormal_ ,” I say, taking another sip from my cup. 

“Being a carnie don’t warrant being a freak on the outside necessarily,” says Agatha. “It’s more a state of mind.”

“Yeah, the state of desperation,” snorts Penny. Agatha picks up a handful of ash and tosses it at her. Penny flails in feigned outrage. 

“See, we was all rock bottom on our luck when Davy gave us a chance to stop begging and make a better wage under his flag,” Penny explains, brushing ash off her skirt. “Bunch of misfits and outcasts we were. My husband Micah had left me for some pale-faced foreign tart when I answered the advert for a costumer for the Carnival. Davy saw I were destitute, so when I were done mending costumes he told me the show could do with a bearded lady if I’d be willing to sew me own beard and mend the costumes every so oft. I said yes on the spot.” She shrugs. “Weren’t nowhere else to be.”

“He found Trixie beggin’ at Charing Cross,” says Shepard.

“And me at the burlesque,” says Agatha, which explains everything.

Shepard elaborates; apparently he joined up while on the run from some bloke named Jim Crow. And then he tells me that Dev and Niall aren’t remotely related, much less conjoined, but rather a pair of lovers who ran off together after they’d got caught.

“How ‘bout you?” I ask Fiona, who’s been eerily quiet this whole time.

She blows smoke in the other direction, sparing my lungs. “Took a recreational liking to fire after I got out of the asylum,” she drones, her consonants clipped. “Davy wouldn’t take me at first, but I convinced him. Just had to swear up and down that I only set Nico’s house ablaze for choosing the sodding drink over me.”

My mouth hangs open. “That true?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, boyo,” she chuckles, the cigarette dangling from her puckish grin.

Penny leans forward and props her head on her hand. “So, what’s your story, anyway?” she asks. “What tale of intrigue brought you to the shore to earn an honest wage with a dishonest bunch like us?”

“I don’t got a story, really,” I reply. “Lost the old job, saw the advert, found my way to Davy’s tent, and now I’m with you lovely lot.” 

They trade disappointed looks at my vague answer, but they don’t ask any more questions. Just how I like it.

“What about the merman? What’s his story?” I ask, taking another sip.

Agatha chokes on her drink.

It happens again, the change in the air. They all go quite still—even the fire-breather puts out her cigarette—and exchange uncomfortable glances.

“I say something wrong?” I ask.

Shepard clears his throat and shifts uneasily in his chair. “That devil’s the realest thing in this place,” he murmurs. “Davy’s been hunting them like a man possessed for as long as I’ve been here.”

“And two nights ago, he finally found what he was looking for,” Penny says darkly. “Hired an extra horse and cart, loaded the bath basin into it, and we all went with him to bring the bloody thing back here.” She shivers, and leans closer to the fire. 

“But _how?_ ” I ask. My mind replays the sound of thunder when the merman slammed into the tank wall. He seems the opposite of easy prey.

“Live bait,” Agatha grumbles.

My jaw goes slack. “You mean… _you?_ ”

She glances behind her toward the tent row before she leans in close. “Put me and Shep in a rowboat and pushed us out to sea, he did.”

“And he left you out there?” I gawp. “How’d he know what would happen?”

“He bloody didn’t, the bastard! And you’ve heard the lore, haven’t you? Merpeople, savages of the sea who’ll snatch any fair maiden dangling her legs in the water,” she huffs. “There we were, Shep and me, stranded in the bay in the middle of the night like a pair of pillocks—it weren’t hard work for me to look like a damsel in distress, I’ll tell you that. If Shep weren’t hiding under the tarp behind me, I’d’ve died of fright thinking I were gonna be dragged down to the depths. But then…”

Her voice trails off. 

“But then what?” I ask, my arse practically hanging off the edge of the steamer trunk.

She shakes her head and stares into the fire. “Well, the merman showed up. Just as Davy said he would. His face just... rose out of the tide like a waterbound angel. I’d never seen the like of him in my life,” she murmurs dreamily. “One look in his eyes and I could tell he’d not come to drown me. Instead, he took the anchor over his shoulder and pulled us back to shore.”

“When we got to the shallows... I threw the net on him,” says Shepard, squirming in his seat. “He started thrashing around like he was more shark than man. I couldn’t hold him by myself. Davy, Dev, and Niall ran into the water to help tie him up.”

“That’s when the mermaid attacked,” Agatha goes on. “She went straight for Davy—like she knew we was doin’ his bidding. She pulled him in by his ankles but the water weren’t deep enough for her to drag him under. The harpoon were in his hand, and—” 

“And I ain’t never heard a scream like that in my life,” Shepard finishes. “It keeps me up at night just thinking about it.” Penny reaches over and puts a sympathetic hand on his leg, while I sit there with my jaw dangling.

“Cor blimey,” I breathe. “That sounds a nightmare. I can’t imagine wanting anything that badly.”

Penny harrumphs. “You don’t know Davy Mage.”

“Lads,” Agatha says, looking anxiously around, “maybe we shouldn’t be jawin' about Davy out here.”

“Oh, tosh,” Penny retorts. “He doesn’t mingle with us commoners unless he wants something. And now that _that thing’s_ here”–she jerks her head toward the last tent in the row–”we’ll just go back to being part o' the scenery, won’t we?”

She doesn’t have to explain what she means. It’s a certain kind of person who calls his charges “attractions.”

I think of what Ebb told me the first day I left for the ironworks.

_A person who thinks of hisself as a dog is easier to control. That’s why there’ll always be someone out there callin' you a mutt 'stead of a man._

_Don’t you believe ‘em, Simon._

_Don’t you bloody believe ‘em._

  
  



	2. Forfeit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s breathing hard, his eyes wild and murderous. “Just try and scream you hotblooded parasite,” he hisses at me. “I’ll tear out your throat. I’ll eat you alive, you flea-bitten sack of terrene entrails.”

My first morning passes busily enough. I divide the work into what needs building, what needs fixing, and what only needs a bit of paint and polish. Building’s first, so Davy leaves me money and a cart to pick up tools and hardware. When I come back from town, I’ve enough to fortify every pole, stake, pulley, and joint in the caravan, what joy is mine.

I’m in the middle of cutting the rot out of some frayed rope by the Menagerie when Penny finds me.

“Oi, Davy went an’ got hisself stuck to the ceiling in the merman tent,” she says, leaning on a hay bale with a hand on her hip. “Needs you to rescue 'im.”

“‘Stuck to the ceiling’?” I ask. 

“You’ll see. Come on, he’s waiting. I’ll walk you over,” she smiles. 

I drop my rope, tuck my knife into my makeshift scabbard (the back loop of my suspenders), and step over the hay to meet Penny. She looks a completely different person than she did last night, dressed as she was in her costume frock with the lace and the pearls and the red ribbons. Today, she’s in a white blouse and purple skirt. She could pass for a proper governess if you didn’t know better.

“I’m Davy’s right hand ‘round here, case you didn’t know,'' she informs me as we walk down the path to the merman tent. “I were the first person to join up, so I were the first face greetin’ everyone as they came on board. You might say I were the mum o’ the group.”

“A mum with a beard,” I grin. “Now that I seen you without it, I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ that periwig would look better on one of the stuffies in the Menagerie.”

Penny laughs heartily. “A regular Dan Leno, you are,” she says, punching me playfully in the arm. “Since it’s come up, if you’re interested in rehabilitatin’ the mangled disasters in that room, let me know. They’re more atrocities than curiosities, an’ I been looking for an excuse to use the old needle an’ thread.”

“I weren’t plannin’ on it,” I admit. “But sproggin’ up the Menagerie could be a welcome distraction.”

We stop outside the merman tent, and Penny holds out her hand. I take it; she meets my firm grip with one of her own.

I really like her.

“That’s a plan, Simon Snow,” she declares. “Now go peel Davy off the ceiling.”

As soon as Davy hears his name, his voice calls out of the tent, “Mister Snow! I’m in need of that strong back of yours!”

Penny departs, and I enter to find Davy Mage perched atop a tall step ladder beside the tank trying to hang a banner over it. With one side grazing the floor, it’s creased, but I make out the words “Prince of Atlantis” in bright flowy letters, and under them, “Eighth Wonder of the World!”

“Painted it yesterday,” he pants. “How do you like it?”

“I like it very well, sir,” I reply. “It’s quite bright, isn’t it?”

“The better to see from the ground!”

My eyes drift to the tank. I almost don’t expect to see him there, the merman. Tail notwithstanding, he doesn’t seem the sort you can hold in captivity for long, and his desperation to leave couldn’t have been more obvious than if he’d actually succeeded in tipping the whole cage over. But he’s still right where we left him, against the glass in the farthest corner where the sunlight doesn’t touch, sleeping.

“Now, now, boy, I’m about to lose a limb trying to hang this on my own,” he grunts, both his arms raised high overhead. “Be a good lad and lift up the other end, would you?”

I shake off the distraction. “Do you have another ladder, sir, so’s I can hook the other end?” I ask, picking the banner off the floor.

“I’m afraid a single ladder is all this bloody company is fit to own at present, Mister Snow,” he concedes, “but I wonder if you could reach it getting on top of the cage there.”

I follow his finger to the cage side where the vertical bars are interrupted by a set of horizontal iron rungs leading to the roof, which is a wide black lattice that spreads like a lid about four feet over the water. There’s a thick iron door built into it for accessing the tank from above. 

That’s how they got him in. Through that hatch. 

I’ve not a single doubt that Mister Mage needed more than chloroform to trap the creature in such a genuinely terrifying contraption.

“Isn’t it formidable?” Davy asks, lowering his arms so he can lean on the ladder. “It’s my own design, you know. Took a sodding decade to figure out how to seal up the leaks and strengthen the glass. I might have saved myself a world of trouble and bought the bloody patent from Harry Houdini himself, the clever lunatic.”

“The tank, you mean?” I say. “It’s… yes, it’s quite impressive, sir.”

“ _Davy_ ,” he corrects. “Say, do you mind if I call you Simon, lad? All this Mister-Sir rubbish is exhausting when there’s work that needs done, wouldn’t you agree?” He shakes his end of the banner. “Now then, up you go.”

I glance back at the merman, still sleeping soundly. Surely the water makes it harder to hear if he can sleep through us prattling on about the indestructibility of his prison.

With the other end of the banner draped over my arm, I walk over to the iron rungs and start to climb. I consider myself a bricky fellow, but my stomach clenches with every step as I rise up toward the ceiling and take my first steps onto the cage roof, ten feet above the ground. I try hard to make no noise, so naturally every step comes down onto the ironwork like I’ve got stones in my boots. 

I’m inching toward the edge when I peer down into the tank. Through the iron lattice, the water has made the creature a blob of shifting, rippling colors. Black, gray, blue, and silver.

Just over my head is the other hook. Davy raises his arms back up and, with some direction from me, manages to hang the loop from the metal hook on his side of the tank. Once he’s done, I slide my own loop into place.

“Brilliant. Stay where you are, if you don’t mind, Simon. It might need adjusting,” he says, gingerly making his way back onto the dirt floor. He positions himself in the center of the tent and glances thoughtfully up at the sign. I can’t tell if he’s admiring our handiwork or dismantling it in his head. “We could use some better lighting,” he muses after a pause. “Perhaps a gas lamp to illuminate them from the front. Add a bit of drama, what say you?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, Davy.” I’ve no idea whether or not his idea’s the right one, but I’ve no real expertise in lighting a stage, so I err on the side of keeping myself agreeable.

“Right then,” he says, clapping the dust off his hands. “I’ll be back before the tea’s gone cold.”

I watch him leave through the tent flap, and when it closes behind him, the room falls back into shadow. 

This place is genuinely creepy when no one else is in it, mermen notwithstanding. Also I feel a bit exposed up here, like pants left out on a line to dry. It bothers me enough that I turn around to climb back down. I’m gonna wait outside.

No sooner do I take a step than a splash like a cannon ball dropping into a lake sends a spray of water flying up at me from below. Something hard and heavy strikes my ankle and I trip, falling gob-first onto the grill of the cage. 

A gray hand, ice cold and rough like sandpaper, yanks one of my wrists through the grill. I’ve no time to get to my knees before another reaches through the iron lattice, takes me by the neck, and pulls down, banging my face into the metal. The long fingers wrapped around my throat squeeze. 

Before I even have time to think, my lungs go tight… My face is pressed so hard against the bars that my eyes water, and through them, I see the beast’s top half dangling three feet above the water.

He’s breathing hard, his eyes wild and murderous. “Just try and scream you hotblooded parasite,” he hisses at me. “I’ll tear out your throat. I’ll eat you alive, you flea-bitten sack of terrene entrails.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it can _talk_.

“Let… me… go,” I gasp against the bars.

“I’ll do no such thing,” he snarls. “You’re going to let me out of this cage or, so help me Neptune, I will gouge the blue out of your eyes with my fingernails. I’ll bite your hand off at the wrist and watch your blood drain through the bars until the water turns scarlet.”

“Can’t… breathe...” 

I never thought I’d die like this. Mauled by a mythical creature. Seems too bloody soon, if you ask me. 

My free hand reaches behind my back, fumbles for the knife I’ve left hanging from my suspenders, and all I can think about apart from my own suffocation is how much easier this would be if I were Agatha the Human Rubber Band. An endless moment passes when I think I’m done for, but before I can swoon, one hard jerk repositions me enough to reach the handle of my blade. 

The gray hand at my neck presses in harder. I swipe at it with the knife, and though the metal glances off the merman’s skin (bloody hell, what’s he made of?) I startle him enough to loosen his grip. Taking advantage of his surprise, I rip myself from his fingers and roll onto my back. The splash he makes falling backwards into the tank soaks my entire backside.

I drop down the iron rungs—or spill down them, more like—collapsing on my knees once I reach the floor. Man alive. My breathing’s all wrong and I can’t make myself walk. I’ll faint the second I’m upright. 

Coughing and wheezing, I turn my head in time to see the merman launch himself at the glass. The impact sounds like a gong—it sends a tidal wave over the side—and he flies into a proper fit, swimming in a great circle, knocking his tail against the walls. I’m so gobsmacked, I almost forget I’m having an asthma attack. I didn’t think that kind of speed was possible underwater. He must be a steam engine himself to move so fast.

The merman tires himself out quickly enough, though, because after a few good strikes at the wall, he finally stops and clings to it. His chest is heaving, his body outlined and shimmering in the filtered sunlight. Our eyes meet again, except this time the fire’s gone out of him. 

Through the glass, all I can see is his despair.

I don’t wait for Davy to come back. Instead, I tear my eyes away from the tank, pull myself to my feet, and stagger out of the tent leaving a trail of wet footprints behind me.

I tell no one what happened.

___

I’m avoiding the merman tent for as long as Davy lets me. The day of the tank incident, I wasn’t up to dick for much else. Davy had come round my quarters to ask where I’d gone, and finding me in bed wheezing and whistling like a bloody pipe organ, he’d left me alone. I didn’t show up at the fire pit for dinner either, so Penny saved me a plate—codfish and mash—and left it outside my tent. I couldn’t eat it.

Since nearly getting offed by a merman, I’m not much in the mood for seafood.

Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities reopens in less than a month, which isn’t much time for me to make improvements, so I work my ten hour days and busy myself replacing iron joints in the wagons and scrubbing sooty canvas. I even cordon off a day to spend with Penny, re-stuffing some of those mangy atrocities in the Menagerie (turns out the Chimera really is just a steamer trunk). 

The others help me here and there, but when they’re not rehearsing their acts or handing me nails, they mostly spend their time ahead of the grand re-opening getting sloshed. 

“What’s on the menu tonight?” I ask after sundown, sitting down between Penny and Shep.

“Codfish and mash,” Penny answers, loading my plate.

“Capital,” I say dully, taking my portion from her.

“I have a brilliant idea, you naughty lot,” says Trixie in her tiny voice. “What if we all played Forfeit after dinner?”

“Oo, I love Forfeit,” says Agatha, clapping her hands over her plate.

I choke down a piece of cod. “Is that a game?”

“Feckin’ travesty, more like,” mutters Fiona, lighting up a fag.

“It’s a parlour game,” explains Penny. “Someone plays the ‘Judge’ and leaves the pit while the rest of us put a trinket or bric-a-brac in the box. When the Judge comes back, they pick something out of the box, and whoever it belongs to has to pay a forfeit.”

“What’s that mean, ‘pay a forfeit’?”

“Whatever the judge wants. Squawk like a pigeon, tell a story, hop on one foot, that sort of thing,” she says. Then, seeing my wary face, she adds, “Come now, Simon, you’ll like it. It’s fun!”

“All right, keep yer wig on, I’ll do it. But I’m gonna need more absinthe,” I mutter.

Everyone here eats like someone’s about to steal their food, so they clear their plates in minutes while I sit trying not to gag on my rubbery fish. They don’t wait for me to finish before Agatha volunteers as judge, running daintily off to hide behind one of the nearby tents. There are no boxes around that aren’t already full, so Niall goes around collecting trinkets from everyone at the pit in a wooden pail. Even Fiona drops in a handkerchief.

I feel around in my pockets for anything that might be worth adding to the collection, but I packed so light when I came to this place, my pockets have been empty for weeks. The last of my belongings are stashed in a wooden case under my cot—my keys to Ebb’s farm, some leftover shillings from the journey, and a small stash of iron ore. I don’t even have a proper handkerchief.

“Penny,” I hiss, getting her attention. “I’ve got nothing to put in the pail.”

“Nonsense,” she says. “I’ve put in my ring. Why don’t you just put in that chain ‘round your neck?”

“Oh.” I reach inside my collar and pull it out. The cross on the end rests in my palm. “I dunno, Pen. It’s sort of valuable.”

“You’ll get it back,” she says. 

“Alright, if you’re sure,” I say nervously. I unclasp the chain, and when Niall comes over to me, I drop it carefully into the pail.

Before long, Agatha sticks her head out and shouts, “Ready or not, here I come!”

She prances over, and Niall hands her the pail. Closing her eyes, she puts her hand in, rummages around a bit, and shrieks. “Bloody hell, Dev, did you put in one of your stockings?” Dev feigns innocence as she yells, “You disgusting berk!” and tosses the brown thing in his face.

I wish I’d thought to do that.

"That one doesn’t count,” she huffs, and her hand goes back in for another search. 

A second later, it emerges from the pail. And it’s holding my chain.

My heart splashes into my stomach.

“All right you lot, who is the proud owner of this very lovely gold cross?” she says, putting on her poshest accent.

I down the rest of my absinthe. It hits my gut like I’ve swallowed kindling. “Mine,” I say, raising my hand amidst scattered clapping and laughter.

“Oh, I snared a good one,” she giggles. “Whatever shall your forfeit be?”

My eyes stay glued on the cross as I wait for her decision. 

“All right, Sir Simon Snow. You shall... tell us a story!”

I tug at my curls and groan. “Crikey, couldn’t I just squawk like a pigeon instead?”

“The judge hath spoken. If you want your cross back, lad, it’s storytime.”

Bloody hell. 

I stand up, stare into the fire pit, and try to think—never my strong suit, and far more difficult now that the absinthe’s diluted my blood. The only stories I know are the fairy stories Ebb told me when I was a tot, and who knows whether this giggling gaggle of drunks wouldn’t barrack my manhood to bits for telling one.

There’s the one about the dragons. I always liked that one. Either way, I’m too liquored up to think of a different one, so it’ll have to do. 

“All right, erm… Once upon a time,” I begin, “there was a knight. And he travelled ‘cross the land in search of dragons to slay.”

“This is gonna be good,” says Penny, leaning forward in her chair.

“Well, one day, the bloke hears about an especially awful dragon guardin’ a turret in a mountain castle. All the townspeople say it breathes fire on anyone what comes too close, and so no one’s been able to kill it nor find out what he’s guardin’ up there.”

“In the turret or the castle?” asks Trixie.

Does it matter? “The turret. So the knight thinks to hisself, ‘I need to trick the dragon if I’m gonna slay it.’ Up the mountain he goes, and when he meets the beast he calls out to it before it can burn him alive. He says, ‘I promise to give you anything you desire if you’ll just abandon your turret and come down to meet me.’ 

“Now the dragon, not bein’ a fool, says, ‘I been lonely for a hundred years. What I want most is a companion. _You_ must come to _me_.’ 

“The knight does as he’s told and starts to make his way up the steps of the castle. He makes it to the gate, an’ the dragon says, ‘I see you have a sword. You must leave it on the ground.”

“Again, the knight does as he’s told and drops his sword on the ground. Next he crosses the drawbridge. When he’s even closer, the dragon says, ‘I see you have a shield. You must hang it on the hook.’

“Again, the knight grants the dragon’s wish, and puts the shield on the hook. He keeps going. He’s almost to the turret when the dragon makes one last request. ‘I see you are wearing armor,’ it says. ‘You must leave it on the stairs.’

“Finally, wearin’ nothing but what the good lord gave him, the knight reaches the turret, where the dragon is waiting for him. The dragon opens the door, but ain’t nothing inside ‘cept a mirror. When the knight looks into it, he sees hisself... with red wings, scales an’ a tail. And there they stay—two dragons—until the end of their days,” I finish.

No one says anything. Everyone stares at me like I’m the one with wings and a tail.

“Is that it?” asks Trixie, folding her arms in disappointment.

I nod. “Yeah, that’s the end,” I say. I hold my hand out to Agatha. “So I’ll be takin’ the chain back now––”

“Wait a tick,” she says, pulling her hand back. “So the knight… becomes a _dragon_?”

“No, see,” I try to explain, “the knight was a dragon all along. Somewhere in his life, he been tricked into thinking he was a man so he’d rid the earth of his own kind. A sort of morality tale about not forgettin’ who you are an’ all that.”

My face is hot. I think I’ve had too much to drink.

“So, erm, the chain. I’d like it back,” I say again. 

“O’ course,” she says. She holds out her open palm. 

Nothing’s in it.

All my blood drains into my feet. I stare at her hand first, then at her face.

“Hmm, that’s odd,” she mutters. “Now where did it go?”

“What d’you mean?” I ask. “Where is it?”

Agatha runs her hands over her hips, then peeks into the pail. “I coulda sworn I just had it,” she mutters. A moment later, she gasps, “Oh no! I must’ve dropped it in the fire!”

“ _No!_ ” I howl, and I lunge for the pit.

“ _Simon!_ ” 

Penny and Shepard both rush me, grabbing my shoulders before I jam my hand right into the flames. 

“Christ almighty, I have it here, you great gormless git! Blimey, you’re a sensitive one,” Agatha cries, dangling the chain in front of my face. “Here you are! No harm done,” she says, pushing it into my palm.

My chest starts closing up, even though I’ve got it back. I’m breathing too quick, and inside, my heart’s pounding against my ribs. Feels like being one of those barrel rifles I used to build and someone’s squeezed the trigger.

Penny notices it first; she’s still got me by the shoulders. “Simon, what’s wrong?” she whispers. I hate that she can see it. 

“Please don’t,” I rasp. 

She takes her hands off my shoulders like I’ve scalded her. “She were just jokin'. Are you all—”

 _"_ I’m not bloody all right _,”_ I growl, and everyone, even Fiona, startles in their seats.

I stuff the necklace into my pocket, grab my plate and stride away from the pit as fast as I can before I make a bigger spectacle of myself. Before the wheezing starts.

Behind me I hear Agatha’s mystified voice. “It were just a bit of fun.”

  
  


___

My first thought is to head to my quarters, but it occurs to me several minutes too late. I’m already most of the way down the main path. I’m hot and bothered, my brain’s addled with liquor, and nothing stokes a fouler mood in me than struggling for breath in front of other people. 

But the merman’s not ‘people,’ is he? He’s ferocious and unapologetically tried to kill me, but he’s locked in a tank and in no position to look down his nose at me for a pair of faulty lungs. I just want to be away from everyone and the most away place is the tent at the end of the path. 

He can’t strangle me if I’m on the ground. The mood I’m in, I dare him to try. 

When I finally reach the end of the row, my breathing’s calmer, but my heart is pounding. I wonder how much of my rancor is thanks to a mostly empty stomach. Why had I even bothered bringing my dinner? Tasted like gnawing an old shoe if the shoe were marinated in low tide and depression.

With the glow of the fire pit far behind me now, I decide to light the lamp on the short table next to the tent opening and bring it with me. I set my dinner down in its place.

Then, quietly, I enter through the canvas flap. The moon’s out again, so the place still glows blue with water ripples across the walls, only this time, I’ve got my lamp in hand so it feels a bit less like I’m stepping into a lagoon. From the looks of it, Davy’s managed to finish decorating the tent, with benches placed about for spectators to sit and lamps along the walls, but if I had to be honest, all the bright cheery trappings look dull compared to what’s in the water. 

_Who’s_ in the water, rather. 

The merman’s awake. His tail’s folded under him, his arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s eyeing me like my bones would make a decorative addition to the bottom of his tank.

I set the lamp down and pull one of the benches over to the glass. Then I sit. 

The merman just stares. 

“Not as vicious now that I’m out here and you’re in there, are you, mate?” I say meeting his glare with one of my own. “I know you can hear me. That day you had a go at me, you could hear everything, couldn’t you?”

No reaction. Well, that’s just fine. 

I’m still not sure why I’m here, but I know it’s not for the bloody banter. 

“I don’t actually run this place, in case you thought I had something to do with you being here. I’m just the hired hand. A day laborer,” I mutter. “So you can stop starin' daggers at me. I ain’t your captor.”

Christ, he’s unnerving to look at. Sitting up close like this with the lamp light, I can make out more of him. He looks about my age, and lean the way an athlete is lean, like maybe he could’ve been an aquatics contender at the new Olympic games. The word that comes to mind is ‘long’—long hair, long limbs, and a long tail to match. Even his nose is a bit long. It doesn’t look wrong on him, so much as it adds to the array of things about him from another world. His hair floats away from his face and under it, I make out a widow’s peak. 

“You’d think you’d appreciate the company,” I grumble. “‘S not healthy being cooped up without no one to talk to. Spent a good portion of my tender years that way. Stunted my speech, it did, ‘til someone had the good sense to put me right. But then... I don’t suppose merfolk get up to much talking underwater, ‘less there’s a way you can make your voices work without air.”

He rolls his eyes at me, and that’s something. It properly exceeds all my wildest expectations considering he did threaten to turn me into chum last week.

“I’m not much of a talker either. Though I reckon I might be disproving that point right now, sittin’ here having a bloody dialogue with meself,” I admit, running a hand through my curls. “The other performers think adding you to the roster’s a bit over the top. They’re proper jealous of you, I think. Trixie called you a bit “butter upon bacon” if you get my meaning. But I like butter an’ bacon a damn sight better than overdone codfish,'' I add, “so you could take that as a compliment.”

At this, the merman stretches his tail out and turns his back toward me. A tremor runs through the sharp pointy fin that runs along his spine.

“Shite,” I say. “You probably don’t want to hear ‘bout the others, do you, given… everything.” 

Also, I reckon the very last thing you tell a merman in captivity is how much you don’t mind his imprisonment.

“I’m sorry about your friend, by the way,” I try again. “The mermaid you were with.” 

At this, his head turns—just a hair. 

“Was she your friend or a sister? Or maybe your wife?” I ask. “Do merpeople even get married?”

I look down at the ground and wring my cap in my hands. “I lost someone, too, not too long ago. Not that it’s the same but… dunno, maybe it helps knowing you’re not the only one gettin’ through a rough patch. My person was a good friend. Name was Ebeneza, but everyone called her Ebb. Maybe you find that sort of funny given where you come from. Ebb and flow and all that.” 

Good lord, I sound a perfect pillock. It follows the standard I’ve set for myself this evening given the barney I nearly fell into over Ebb’s gold chain.

My hand goes to my hip pocket. Sighing, I pull out the necklace.

“I never had no mum, but Ebb were just as good as one,” I murmur, staring at the cross. “She took in loads of scraps. Kids from all over who didn’t have no one to care for them and could use a warm bed and a spot of kindness till we was old enough to make our way in the world. I’d tried to save her like she’d saved me. Typhoid fever’s what took her in the end, and I'll tell you, there ain't much worse ways to go than that. But even as she was leavin', she… she made sure we knew we was loved...”

A tear falls into my cap, and I roll my eyes at myself. “I must look a complete tit right now, crying into my hat when you’re stuck in there,” I mutter, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I don’t even know why I’m tellin’ you any o’ this...”

Suddenly, I hear the burble of water, and when I look up, the merman is off the bottom of the tank. He’s facing me. 

My heart climbs up my throat as I watch him glide toward me, slowly and more graceful than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. His skin turns from silver to gold as he enters the lamp light.

When he reaches the edge where I’m sitting, he doesn’t look at me. Just stares at a spot somewhere on the ground between us. I look up into his face and recognize something very familiar in the crease of his brow.

Slowly, I stand up. He watches, still and silent as a stone as I press my fingers against the glass.

“The mermaid,” I say. “Was she… your mum?”

He lifts his sorrowful gaze. Raises his hand.

And he places it on the glass against mine.

“Cor blimey, I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “I can’t imagine losing your freedom an’ your mother in the same breath. I’d fly into frenzies meself if it were me, an’ that’s the truth.”

I take my hand away. “Wait here. I mean… not that you’ve anywhere to go, but just... I’ll be back.” 

Jogging, I head back to the entrance, stick my head out of the tent, and grab the plate of uneaten food. 

“You getting enough to eat?” I ask, holding up the food for him to see. The merman peers askance at me like I’ve lost the plot, but I take a chance anyway and bring the plate with me up the side of the cage. When I reach the top, I lie on my belly upon the lattice and wait.

It takes a minute for him to stop eyeing me with suspicion, but he eventually meets me at the top of the tank. His face breaks the surface first, then his shoulders. Below him, his tail waves slowly to and fro, treading the water. 

I’m struck dumb at the sight of him. The folklore’s mostly about mermaids, not mermen. How the open seas are cursed with sirens—impossibly beautiful fish-ladies bent on snatching sailors off of ships and dragging them down to Davy Jones’s Locker. I wonder if any seafarers of old ever encountered a creature like this, though. 

He’s so beautiful, it’s terrifying.

“I’m Simon Snow. You got a name?” I ask, and pass a piece of cod through the bars. 

He takes it from me with a grimace, and it dawns on me that merpeople don’t likely cook their fish. 

“I’ve many names,” he says quietly, taking a nibble of the cod, then shuddering in disgust. Knowing he dislikes the rubbery stuff as much as I do feels like vindication.

“All right,” I say. “Can you narrow ‘em down a bit?”

“Your kind couldn't pronounce it in my language,” he answers snobbishly. 

“Would you prefer I call you ‘merman’?”

“No,” he answers testily. “I suppose there is a name you could use. The last human I spoke to was a priest from Crete. He called me Tyrranos Basilias.”

“That’s still a right mouthful, innit,” I observe. “I’m more blacksmith than wordsmith, in case you ain’t noticed. What if I called you Ty? Or maybe Baz?”

He takes another small bite and chews as he mulls it over.

“All right, Simon Snow. You may call me Baz.”


	3. Breathing Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me, sitting there on top of the metal bars trying to breathe into my hands, that I’ve been strangled around the chest for twenty-three years. That every day has felt like sipping air through a straw, whether or not I was hot or frightened or standing in a room full of smoke. 
> 
> I’ve never breathed this deeply in my life. 

I didn’t sleep a bloody wink last night. 

After an hour engaged in the single most awkward conversation I’ve ever had with a person, let alone a captive merman (whose idea of first introductions involved eyeing me suspiciously over his folded arms while I made half-hearted excuses for the codfish), I was too wound up for resting. 

I’d returned to my tent to find a note on the ground propped against a small box of Jelly Babies. _To make it up to you,_ said the note, with “P & Company” scrawled below it in pretty cursive. 

Starving as I was, I emptied the whole box into my mouth.

I’m paying for my poor decisions now. The sun’s beating down, making every tent a proper crucible, which is some bollocks because my breathing suffers in the haze and heat as a rule. 

Today, I’m rebuilding the Conjoined Twins’ stage, the earlier version of which was too high off the ground and so warped from the humidity that the center had completely bowed in and cracked. Both Dev and Niall help me assemble the wooden slats and take turns passing me nails, pretending they can’t hear the coughing, nor the whistle in my chest.

“Here,” says Dev, handing me a tin cup full of water while I crouch beside the corner of the stage to hammer another board. “You’re gonna turn into a proper prune if you keep sweatin’ that way.”

“Thanks.” I accept it eagerly and down it in a few gulps. Then I set down the cup and hold out my hand for more nails.

“Why don’t you take a break, mate?” Niall says, setting the nail bucket aside. “Dev an’ me won’t know what to do if you give yerself a stroke in here trying to fix our rubbish stage.”

“All right, may as well,” I rasp, standing up to give my legs a good stretch.

“Love, can I get you some water too?” says Dev to Niall in hushed tones. 

“Nah, I’m all right,” he replies. “Go on an’ get some for yourself though.” Dev squeezes Niall’s shoulder, but before he leaves, Niall catches Dev’s hand and kisses it.

I try not to stare.

Just as I avert my eyes, Niall notices me and clears his throat. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“It don’t bother me,” I say. “I ain’t the judgin’ type.”

“Everyone thinks they ain't the judgin' type,” he notes, passing a cloth over his face.

“I ain’t never been in love. What’s there to judge?”

He raises his ginger eyebrows. “Never been in love? A handsome chap like you? Somebody chain you to that anvil in Watford so’s you’d never tempt a lady?”

I shrug. “There weren’t no one to tempt.” 

That's not true. I’d had opportunities to charm other people, and maybe I would have done so had my heart not been dashed a million times then patched back together like the Chimera in the Menagerie. I don’t know who to tempt. Because I still don’t know who tempts _me_. The last time I felt something more than friendship for a person, strong arms and a broad chest weren’t enough to make me ask if he found me as distracting as I found him. Great Eccleston’s too small a town.

I decide now’s not the time to bring up history.

“So, was it hard?” I ask, swirling the dregs in my cup. “Runnin’ away?”

Niall shakes his head and casts me a bittersweet grin. “Way I see it, there weren’t no other choice, really,” he tells me. “Dev’s relations is all religious, an’ when they found us snogging in a hay bale, his pa batty-fanged him ‘til he were barely breathin’. Told him he’d either have to give me up or else give up his name.” 

“Cor blimey,” I wheeze. “Then what happened?”

“Well, he comes to the window all bloodied up in the middle of the night,” Niall says soberly, “cryin’ that he was sorry and wailin’ in my arms like we was doomed. But then… then, I says to him that I’d take care of him an’ he had nothin' to fear. That so long as we had each other, we had all we needed.” He sits on the low stack of wooden slats. Picks at the ground. “We was seventeen when we left and ain’t never looked back.”

Save for the accordion in my chest, I go quiet. 

I’ve never known a love like that. The kind that paves a path out of Hell and steers you through it. Dev and Niall might have traded one prison for another by running away together, but I’m staggered they had the courage to do it, and so young. How many nose-baggers had come to visit the Conjoined Twins exhibit, and never really _seen_ what they were looking at? 

“That’s quite a story,” I remark. “You two ever think you’d find yourselves attached at the hip in a pit show?”

“ _Lit’rally,_ you mean?” Niall snorts. “Nah, but I ain’t got no regrets. Maybe you think less of us for keepin’ company with the likes o’ Davy Mage, but the show keeps us together an’ safe from folks what don’t understand. Which is a damn sight better than bein’ alone and dead.”

He doesn't realise it, but I understand him perfectly. I was a baby when I was left on the steps of St. Michael’s parish orphanage, and nine when I walked right out the front door; I don’t think anyone had even bothered to look for me. Two years later, fate left me wandering around Fleetwood Market with nothing but a red ball in my pocket—the kind you’d only pilfer from a kid with clean, combed hair and bright blue knickerbockers. No one but the good Lord knows what other sins I’d committed to stay alive so long, but they must not have mattered much if Ebb found me.

My memories from that time are littered with holes. But I remember enough to know my life would’ve been mighty different if a kindhearted lady with an abundance of nanny goats had seen a guttersnipe when she looked at me instead of a starving soul.

Alone and dead is exactly what I would've been without her.

I drag in another loud breath and wipe the sweat off my brow. “Like I says,” I mutter. “I ain’t the judgin’ type.”

  
  


___

  
  


Determined not to suffer through another night of flavorless cod-mash, I buy a sandwich off the promenade for dinner. I’d rather not ruin everyone else’s appetite with my “musical breathing” as Ebb used to call it, so I bring it back to the carnival intending to devour it in the quiet privacy of my tent. 

My feet have other ideas. I’m just arriving at my quarters when they walk past it down the main path toward the merman tent.

I dunno. There’s something about spending the day in the presence of a couple in love that makes quiet privacy seem less inviting.

As I’d done yesterday, I bring in the lamp and approach the tank slowly. Baz sees me immediately; he glides along next to me as I shuffle my feet around the cage side and hoist myself up the iron rungs, the asthma weighing down my every step.

When I get to the top, I slump down and cross my legs. His face rises out of the water.

“You’re here again,” he says bluntly. He’s studying me through the lattice like he’s not quite sure whether I’m a welcome sight.

“Would you prefer I wasn’t?” 

“I’m just surprised to see you given your professed aversion toward empty repartee,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“So you were listening, then,” I say.

One of his eyebrows goes up. “Did I have a choice?” 

After a tick, Baz peers curiously up at me through the bars. “Why are you panting? And why do you sound like a calliope?”

"How do _you_ know what a calliope is?"

The merman huffs at me. "How could I not? All your silly riverboats carry them. They're so loud, you could practically hear them from the bottom of a trench."

“Well, I’ve got bad lungs, alright?” I huff back, pulling the sandwich out of my sack. “It’ll pass. Just… give me a moment to settle.”

He tilts his head to look sideways at me, then ducks down into the water to swim in circles. Like he’s pacing. I go back to unwrapping my sandwich.

A minute later, he resurfaces. “Are you settled yet?”

“No,” I snap. 

I shouldn’t have come tonight. I didn’t care when Baz was just a murderous fish man with pretty eyes, but now that we’re talking, turns out struggling to breathe in front of him feels no better than wheezing and whistling in front of the rest of the company. In fact, wheezing in the presence of someone who can breathe underwater somehow feels worse. 

“There’s no need to be an urchin about it,” he retorts. “Is it all the black air out there that’s clogging your lungs, then?”

I sigh mightily, which spawns a coughing fit. “I were born like this,” I croak into my handkerchief.

At this, Baz winces. “Born with traitorous lungs,” he reflects. I’ve shocked the imperious tone out of his voice. “How can that be?”

I tear a bite off the sandwich. (Praise the lord for roast beef.) 

“Unlike merfolk, humans ain’t bloody perfect, that’s how,” I say through a mouthful of food. “Though I reckon the smoke from the railways don’t help. Nor does all this buggering heat.”

“You think I’m perfect?” he asks.

“Oh, shut yer sauce-box.”

And he smirks at me, the git. “Well, you should swim more. That would help,” he states with the authority of a doctor. 

Another coughing fit seizes me—it’s always worse at night—and I try not to get crumbs in the water, hacking off to the side. “I don’t swim, thank you,” I gasp. “And anyway, what makes you the expert?”

“I am a merman. I can hold my breath for longer than it takes you to finish your sandwich. I breathe both air and water, which is exactly one _more_ type of breathing than you do. What more evidence do you need?”

I reach for my cross—a nervous habit whenever I’m having an asthma fit—then gape through the lattice at Baz. “How d’you do it, then?” I ask because I’m genuinely curious. “Do you have, you know, _gills_ hidden in there somewhere?”

Baz looks scandalized. “Absolutely not,” he declares. “I breathe through my nose and mouth, same as you. The difference is my lungs have four chambers compared to your two, and half of them are for breathing water.”

This tidbit fascinates me so much, I discard the rest of my manners to pry further. “Is it… something you have to think about? Or does your body just know what to do?”

“It knows,” he says simply. “I only have to get involved on very special occasions.”

“‘Very special occasions’? What, like on bank holidays?”

He meets my skepticism with an expression that makes the color rise in my cheeks. “I’d give you a demonstration, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t like it.” 

“Right,” I wheeze, dropping my gaze. “I’ll take your word for it.”

After a pause, during which I stare longingly at my sandwich as I wait for enough breath to take another bite, Baz speaks again. 

“I can help you.”

“An’ how’s that?”

“Put down that cylindrical food, and I’ll show you.”

I glance warily down through the iron bars. I can’t understand why he’s taken an interest in my lungs all of a sudden, much less why he thinks he can help. It’s probably a commentary on my desperation that I lay my sandwich down on my satchel as Baz floats over, graceful as a dancer.

“Sit up straight,” he commands. “You’re hunched, and it’s not helping you.”

Rolling my eyes, I sit up straighter.

“Good,” he observes, his voice softer. “Now place one hand over your heart, and another over your belly, but don’t press in.”

I do as I’m told and try to ignore the blush creeping up my neck. One hand on my chest, the other on my stomach. “All right,” I rasp, ”now what?”

“Now, here’s the important bit,” he says. “Make your throat just a bit tight, and breathe deep through your nose so it makes this sound…” 

Baz breathes in and out. It’s loud, like he’s drawing the air in through a vent. It instantly reminds me of my first morning in Blackpool standing on the south pier watching the waves roll in to meet the shore.

“That sounds just like the ocean,” I say. 

“Exactly right. Now you try.”

I straighten up a bit more, and draw in a ragged breath through my nose. It takes a few tries to make it work without coughing or closing up, but before long, I hear it. The sound of the ocean. My breath gets longer.

“Good. Now see if you can take in more,” he continues, his voice low and calm. “Enough to make both your hands rise up.”

I nod, then draw the air in. It gets caught; my lungs resist, and I choke on it. 

“Relax. Close your eyes,” he murmurs up at me. “Try to feel it. Imagine it like the tides coming in. Let the air fill you.”

My eyes close. Baz tells me to keep going, so I do. His voice is deep and melodic and so very easy to obey, which makes me wonder if there might be something to all the lore about sirens after all. I pull in all the air I can until I see it in my mind, filling up all the corners in my chest. 

“Very good, Snow. Keep going.”

The tide flows in. The tide flows out. 

Over and over and over again. It reminds me of watching the surf sweep away my footprints on the beach. 

I’m getting dizzy. Also, I feel like I might cry, which I can’t explain, even to myself. Like there’s a knot inside my chest that’s never touched air, and now that I’ve breathed into it, it’s unwinding.

It occurs to me, sitting there on top of the metal bars trying to breathe into my hands, that I’ve been strangled around the chest for twenty-three years. That every day has felt like sipping air through a straw, whether or not I was hot or frightened or standing in a room full of smoke. 

I’ve never breathed this deeply in my life. 

When I’m not expecting it, Baz’s voice offers a new command. “Open your eyes.”

I open them, and for a moment I forget what I was doing. I take a breath—the normal kind—and though I’m still a bit tight, to my complete astonishment, I don’t hear the whistle.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod, pulling in another breath just to make sure. “Yeah,” I exhale. “It is, actually. What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he shrugs. “You did that yourself. And if you’re smart, you’ll do that more often. Train your lungs to be stronger and perhaps they won’t betray you so much.”

My hand is still over my heart as I stare at him. I can’t tell if he’s a magical creature or not, but whatever just happened felt like being put under a spell. 

Baz stares back at me until he shakes himself and clears his throat. “You’re overtaxed, Simon Snow. You should rest.”

“Right. Sure,” I murmur, still dazed. “You as well.”

Slowly, I climb down the iron rungs with my belongings in tow, then walk around the tank in the direction of the tent flap. 

But before I go, I turn back. 

Baz hovers by the wall, and whether it’s because he actually likes my company or just doesn’t want to be isolated again, he seems sorry to see me go.

I walk over, put my hand against the glass, and smile. A promise to return.

A grin tugs at Baz’s lips, his gray eyes crinkling at the corners. He places his hand against mine.

As I duck through the tent flap and walk out into the humid night air, I put my hand back on my chest to touch the cross under my shirt buttons. 

I haven’t felt this light in ages.

  
  


___

  
  


I return to my tent to find Penny snoring on the chair outside the flap. 

Sandwich wrapper still in hand, I approach with the caution of a man wholly unused to ladies lingering around his quarters. (The closest I ever came to it, I was sharing the room with five other kids, and the lady in question was Ebb.)

“Penny.” I touch her shoulder and she nearly startles out of her chair. “What’re you doing here?” I ask. “Everyone’s gone back to their tents.”

“Everyone’s gone back? Man alive,” she mumbles, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Have you been out this whole bloody time?”

“Well, yeah. I were feeling a bit peaky, so I got dinner at the pier and visited the merman.” 

Her drooping eyes spring back to life. “You _what?_ ” She gets to her feet, snatches her lamp off the ground, and jerks her head like she’s my mum and I’ve been caught mafficking by the police. “Get in that tent, I want to talk to you.”

Before I can ask what’s got her knickers in a twist, she silences me with a finger to her lips, follows me inside, and yanks the flap closed behind us. 

“When we didn’t see you at dinner, I figured you weren’t well,” she says, thumping the lamp on the floor. “I didn’t know you’d completely lost your marbles!”

I must look as confused as I feel because she‘s staring at me like I ought to get my own carnival exhibit as the thickest bloke in Lancashire. “What’d I do?” 

She tugs me down to sit on the bed beside her. “It’s one thing to wander in there ‘cause you’re sloshed and can’t find your proper tent,” she hisses furiously. “It’s another thing entirely to pay a visit to Davy’s prize. And talk to it!”

"But why?”

Penny looks skyward. “Mother Mary give me strength.” Then she puts her dimpled hand on my arm and looks me level in the eye. “So now that you’re livin’ among us for a tick, there’s something you ought to know about Davy,” she says. “On the surface, he’s a proper gentleman, all high-class manners and pretty words. But he’s crafty and downright vicious when he needs to be.”

My brain gets stuck on “vicious.” It makes me think of Baz’s mum.

“Here’s your one and only history lesson, Simon,” Penny continues in a low voice. “This whole operation used to be a traveling museum when his father ran it, but it were Davy what made a real business of it after his pa died, and he did it using every filthy trick up his sleeve. You don’t want to cross him, Simon. Understand?”

In the hard shadows of the lamplight, Penny’s face is all intensity. Makes me wonder how many of Davy’s ‘filthy tricks’ she’s seen with her own eyes. 

“Got no reason to cross him, do I?” I say. “I’m just a hired hand.”

“Even so. We all get by ‘round here by keepin’ our loaf o’ bread out of trouble,” she says. “But if you hang about that tank, you’re gonna draw Davy’s eye, an’ I’m tellin’ you you don’t want that.”

My mood sinks at the implications of everything she’s telling me. At the thought of leaving Baz alone after that look he gave me on my way out of his tent. “All right.” I concede. “I’ll... keep my distance.”

Satisfied if also slightly rumpled, Penny stands and scoops up her lamp. 

“Can I walk you back?” I offer.

“Nah,” she replies, meeting me at the tent flap. “Don’t look so glum, Simon. This company’s all we’ve got, an’ you’re part of the family now. We takes care of each other.”

“All right,” I say, quietly. “Who takes care of the merman, then?”

Penny sighs and steps out into the night air.

“Just be careful,” she says, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to see you caught in a net neither, if you get my meaning.”

Watching Penny stride across the path toward her tent, I can’t help wondering what Ebb would make of all this. 

_Folks’ll try to steer you fore and aft, Simon, but ain’t no compass better than a pure heart._

  
  


___

  
  


That night, I dream about the ocean. 

I’m underwater, floating in a churning sea. 

Not floating. Sinking. 

Above me, the sunlight filters down through the water in luminous bands, and though the weight of the sea is crushing, I feel calm. Safe. Strong arms hold me gently.

When the sun disappears overhead, I see him.

Black hair. Pale skin. Sea-gray eyes. 

_Are you my captor or my savior?_ I think.

He holds me closer. I hear his voice in my mind like music.

_I am both._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has read, commented, and kudo'ed so far. I'm catching up with replies as much as I can, but in the meantime, just know that I'm over the moon that you're enjoying yourselves. <3


	4. Improving the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We flow. We commune with fellow creatures of the deep, rescue the occasional whale or marooned human ingrate, and tend to our families, but we live too long to behave as you do: like time is a thing you can outswim if you fill it up with enough _doing._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter implies sexual coercion (it’s not Simon/Baz) and briefly discusses racial violence in America.

I’m not always a contrary bloke, but despite Penny’s warning, I go back to visit Baz the next night. 

And then the next.

It’s not that I doubt her. If Davy could skewer a mermaid through the heart, then Penny’s probably right about sticking my neck out too far where his "prize” is concerned. I rather like this job (I rather like my life, as well) which is to say I thought about stopping and sparing myself the risk. But Ebb always said, “Do right an’ you’ll never go wrong,” and I can’t think of anything more wrong than abandoning Baz to Davy’s bullying or to grieving his mum alone. 

I dunno. Maybe I don’t want to grieve alone either.

For a week, I bury myself in my work during the day, eat my meals quietly by the pit, and when it looks like everyone else is sufficiently distracted with powdering hair and parlour games, I take my walk down the path to Baz’s tent. 

I look forward to talking to him. He’s got a sour disposition generally, which I can’t fault him for given the revolting circumstances that put him in that tank. Everything about the world of men is barbaric and excessive to him, but when he’s not slipping into melancholy over his mum or making sardonic comments about my intelligence, he’s indulging my curiosity. 

You can't blame me for grilling him with questions; he’s been alive for ages, so he knows dozens of languages and all sorts of things about the ocean I’ve always wondered about, like whether Atlantis exists (it doesn’t) or if the Devil’s Triangle is as dangerous as they say (it is). He’s taken to calling me “barnacle” (“What sordid ritual sacrifice must I perform to scrape you off my tail, Snow?”) but I get the feeling he likes the attention, knowing so much more about the world than I do. 

“Does bein’ half man, half fish make you a magical creature? Like a dragon or a fairy?” I ask him one night, sitting with my legs crossed atop the lattice over his tank.

Baz lays back on the water with his hands behind his head, floating in a slow circle. (Just your average merman lounging in his watery hammock.) 

“Well, I don’t know, Snow. I see you have spots on that sunbaked skin of yours—does that make you an especially daft turbot?”

“Oh bugger off,” I mutter. Then, after a tick, “What’s a turbot?”

He sighs wistfully. “Delicious, that’s what.”

“So is there _any_ truth to the stories ‘bout merpeople?” I ask. “Or did the explorers just make all it up?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “That depends on what you’ve heard.”

“Well, you know, don’t you? Wreckin’ ships an’ lurin’ sailors down to the depths,” I say. “You’ve a right vicious reputation.”

Baz rolls his eyes. “Drag me on a reef, humans will make up anything to disguise their own failures, won’t they?” he mutters. “Of course not, Snow. Those _explorers_ , if you’re ignorant enough to call them that, spent months marinating in sea spray and isolation. They were bound to come up with some fatuous story to explain their encounters with our kind and mask their own loneliness.” His tail flicks in irritation. “Honestly, when the ocean claims a human life, do my people a favour and blame the sailor, not the sea.”

“All right. Then what’s your purpose?” I ask.

He squints at me. “My ‘purpose’?”

“Yeah. Erm, like your occupation,” I say, scratching my neck. “Or a job. What do you _do_ in the ocean all day?”

“You lot are obsessed with productivity.” 

Baz tips upright and moves his arms in wide arcs along the water’s surface. I watch, entranced, as it rolls in waves over his graceful hands.

“You might say we excel at hunting, I suppose, but we don’t _do_ anything,” he explains. “We flow. We commune with fellow creatures of the deep, rescue the occasional whale or marooned human ingrate, and tend to our families, but we live too long to behave as you do: like time is a thing you can outswim if you fill it up with enough _doing_.”

I gawp at him. I can’t even fathom it, an existence without doing. There wasn’t a day in my life when I wasn’t labouring—on the farm or sweating in the ironworks—to keep the lot of us fed and clothed. 

“How old are you, anyway?” I ask him.

“Quite young by our standards. Quite old by yours.” His tail flicks again, and it spins him in the other direction. “How old are _you?_ ”

“Twenty-three.”

He grins. “Let’s go with that, then." 

___

All the next day, I think about what Baz said. About doing and flowing. My progress on the carnival improvements is going well, so I take a break from the heavy structural tasks to do a bit of painting, in case there’s a benefit lurking somewhere in the act of sitting with a paintbrush in my hand instead of a hammer. I’m refreshing the sun bleached “Tattooed Australian” sign when the tattooed man himself turns up over my shoulder. 

“Hey, now. You’re a regular Michelangelo, aren’tcha?” says Shepard.

I glance up at him, and stifle a laugh. Christ, he reeks of America in that absurd derby hat. He’s even chewing on hay, and with his shirt sleeves rolled up under a set of striped coveralls, Shepard’s arm tattoos are on full display. He looks like a patchwork quilt.

“You mean to say I’ve got a ceiling to paint next?” I quip.

“Well played. Don’t let me interrupt,” he says. “Just came by to tell you Davy wants you at his tent in an hour.”

“Well, I could just come back and finish later…” I drop the paintbrush into the thinner and start wiping up, but Shep stalls me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Trust me. You’re gonna want to wait the hour,” he says. He’s still smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Excepting Penny, everyone here seems to do that a bit. Smile like there's a devil on their shoulder telling them to. My years on the street may not have given me much in the way of a vocabulary, but I can smell intrigue better than Sherlock bloody Holmes. As chatty as they are, it’d be a relief if more of these folks could talk without trying to sell me a dog. 

“If you say so,” I murmur, then take my seat and pick up my brush again.

He strolls around to examine the sign from another angle. “Looks just like me, don’t it?” he deadpans. “A real spittin’ image.” 

I look at his face, then back at the sign. The Shepard I’m painting over has a square face, the thick arms and triangular torso of a weightlifter, and a smallish tiger skin garment draped revealingly over his chiseled tattoo-adorned chest. Also, he’s not wearing trousers.

It’s Shepard, all right, if he were the muscular chieftain of an ancient tribe of game hunting exhibitionists.

“I’m assumin’ this look were someone else’s idea,” I say, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

“You catch on quick. Improving the truth is Davy’s specialty,” he admits, chuckling goodnaturedly. He spits out the hay and crosses his arms over his chest. “So how does an ironworker get roped into a gig like this? You find Davy, or did Davy find you?”

I shrug, dipping my brush back into the paint. “I came to Blackpool thinkin’ I’d be a rail worker like you was, actually. But I found out that’d mean startin’ out a fireman and workin’ my way up, and my lungs couldn’ta handled that. I was ‘bout ready to head back to Great Eccleston ‘fore I were walking ‘round the promenade and saw the advert for the carnival. I never had much diversion growin’ up, so I thought it might be interesting if the pay were good enough.”

“And has it met your expectations?”

Expectations are for blokes with an eyeball on the future. For plotters and planners with greater control over their lives than I ever had. I just take things as they come, and I very nearly say so, but then I think of Baz.

I didn't expect him. I could have had my palm read and never in a million years have counted on meeting the likes of him.

“Didn’t think I’d be painting over portraits of tattooed blokes in tiger pelts, I’ll tell you that,” I say instead. 

“By the time you’re done here, you’ll be a regular jack of all trades.” Shep pulls up a chair and makes himself comfortable next to me, removing his hat and propping his feet on a hay bale. I’m not used to audiences while I work, but if he insists on watching, I may as well get better acquainted with the chap.

“I been spending the last hour retouchin’ your tattoos in the picture,” I say, dragging the brush carefully over the Shepard in the sign. “Where’d the real ones come from?”

“Had an unfortunate run-in with a demon and got cursed,” he says simply. 

When my eyebrows fly up my forehead, he slaps his knee and guffaws in genuine yankee fashion. “Naw, I’m just teasin’! These tats are parts of my life. In the states, folks who look like me don’t really have what you’d call a history. Not past the boats that brought my people over the ocean, at any rate. That's why I started wearing my own story on my skin. Reminds me I don’t need no coat of arms dating back to Lord-knows-when if I wanna be just as good as anyone else, ya know? Makes me feel… real.”

“Uh-huh. That why they call you the Tattooed Australian?”

“Fair point,” he concedes. “That was Davy’s idea. He said it brings in more money if you’ve got an ex-convict to show off than an American emigrant who likes ink.”

I sit back up and look at his arms, each covered with shapes and numbers and thorny patterns. I point to a craggy one on his bicep. “What’s that one mean, then?”

“The lightning bolt? That one’s from back home,” he says. “I love a good thunderstorm and I wanted a little reminder of the Nebraskan skies I was born under. A storm out there could put the fear o’ God right into you, but it never scared me none. I loved watching ‘em roll in and turn a clear sky dark.”

“Crikey, how would someone come all the way to England from… What’d you call it?”

“Nebraska.”

“Right. What you said.”

He leans back in his chair. “Omaha’s got a showman of our own who likes England an awful lot. Ever heard of Buffalo Bill?”

My hand jerks, and I nearly wreck the painting. “You came over with _Buffalo Bill_?" I gape. "How the bloody hell’d you manage that?”

He snorts. “Easy. I introduced myself.”

“You’re a damn nutter,” I laugh. 

I have my doubts about the veracity of Shepard’s story, but I let him tell it anyway. He goes on to say he worked with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show as a hired hand through Glasgow and London until he got into a “gambling pickle” that even Bill Cody couldn’t help him out of. For the whole hour, we talk more than I paint—about Annie Oakley‘s taste in wine, how Martha Jane became Calamity Jane, and getting tattooed by one of Sitting Bull’s own braves. Shep’s such a good storyteller, I’m pinned to my seat in fascination until he reminds me it’s time to see Davy.

As I’m packing up, I ask, “What made you leave the States?”

Shepard’s smile fades for a moment. 

“How’s about I answer you by asking a different question?” he says.

“All right.”

“If folks were killin’ off curly-haired freckle-faces like you just for looking at a lady, and you had a shot at leavin’, would you stick around?”

“Prob’ly not,” I say.

He puts his hat back on. “Exactly.” 

Shepard gets up and claps me on the shoulder, bumping into me as we trade places so I can leave. “Mind the grease,” I say, glancing back.

And then I look again. 

Shepard’s tattoo is smudged where he bumped me.

___

I cut across the path to head to Davy’s quarters and thank God for the breeze. The sun’s out to scorch us to death the deeper we cut into July, but it’s far more tolerable with an ocean wind blowing through the thoroughfare, cooling off the tents and tourists alike as they bake like biscuits on the promenade. The shore is visible from the carnival if you look between the tents; they’re packed full of Lanky nose baggers who compete with the Londoners for a shady nook beside the pier. Some of them pull their wagons right into the surf. 

I’ve never left dry land before. On clear days like today, when it’s easy to make out the craggy shapes of small sharking boats on the horizon, I think it might be fun to hire a dinghy. View Blackpool from a distance. I can almost imagine myself out there rocking on a calm sea, so far away I could fit the tower, the Ferris wheel, and the whole promenade in the palm of my hand. 

At that moment, a hard blow to my chest knocks me out of my daydream and nearly off my feet, sending my cap to the ground. Agatha's crashed into me on her way out of Davy’s tent.

“Oh! Simon! I—I’m sorry,” she stammers, a bright blush already colouring her cheeks. “I didn’t see you—“

“Not to worry,” I say. I'm dusting the dirt off my cap when I get a better look at her. “Agatha... are you all right?” 

Her skirt and hair are rumpled. Her lip rouge is smeared. She looks positively horrified to see me. 

My brain catches up with my eyes.

“Simon!” Davy shouts from within. 

I want to ask what happened, but the words get stuck on my tongue. Agatha looks like she wants to tell me, too, but then she pats down her tousled hair, takes a last look at my stricken face, and runs away, leaving me standing dumbstruck at the tent flap.

“Come in, lad!” he calls again.

Davy’s booming voice jolts me out of my stupor, and I stumble into his tent. I’m still not sure whether what I saw matches what I think I saw, but then I find Davy buttoning his shirt in front of the mirror, and suddenly everything crystallizes. 

Oh. 

Oh, Agatha.

Noticing my reflection in the mirror, he turns and grins widely, stretching his thin mustache over a set of tobacco-stained teeth. 

“Just who I wanted to see,” he exclaims. “I’m readying myself for a trip into town and will be away from the carnival for a number of days while I promote our humble little production there.”

“‘Promote.’ What’s that mean?” I ask, struggling to mold my face into something impassive.

“Oh, you know. Place adverts in the paper. Put up posters, and whatnot. Look there,” he says, pointing to a stack of flyers on his writing desk. 

I pick one up and read it aloud. “‘Come one, come all to meet the captivating and remarkable Prince of Atlantis, Eighth wonder of the world. Exhibition only at Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities.’” Below the lettering is an ink illustration of an older royal-looking fish-man, complete with crown and trident. 

Indeed, the real Baz looks princely, but he doesn’t look like this.

For starters, his tail is elegant and long with sharp fronds and a fin along the back. This drawing depicts him with the lower half of a mackerel. Like Shepard’s painting, it also adds several stones to Baz’s lean athletic frame.

“I drew the illustration myself.” Davy winks at me as he threads his arms through his waistcoat. “A stunning likeness, wouldn’t you agree?” 

“It certainly is stunning,” I murmur and return the flyer to the stack. Beside it sits Davy’s Derringer.

I’ve visited Davy’s quarters before, but this is the first time I’ve really _seen_ it. It’s much larger than mine is, with a full-length mirror, and an exotic-looking folding partition wall. His writing desk sits against the canvas wall across from his bed, and a table and chairs for visitors—where he first interviewed me—occupies the center of the space. Everything looks exceedingly tidy, with the exception of a sooty film coating the canvas walls and furniture, no doubt the result of his excessive pipe smoking.

“Now, while I’m gone, I’ll need someone to look after the carnival,” he says, brushing dust off his threadbare sleeves. “Dev and Niall are still in charge of meals, so you’ll not have to fuss for those, but someone will have to look after the properties…” His voice lowers as he adds, “Which includes our occupant in the end tent.”

My heart leaps in my chest. “You want me to look after the merman?”

He grips my shoulder and turns us toward the table in the center of the room. “I wouldn’t ask anyone I didn’t trust implicitly. You’ve shown your worth two fold since you’ve started here. I can’t believe how quickly you’re making progress on your own.”

“Well, I’ve had help from the others,” I admit.

“That’s because the attractions respond to leadership, and if you don’t mind my saying so, you seem to have that in abundance,” he says authoritatively. 

I have literally no idea what he’s talking about. 

“I’ve left salt to treat the water in the crates behind the tent, and a good store of dried cod to keep it quiet. You simply open the hatch above the tank and drop it in. I would advise you not to get too close, however,” he adds ominously. “It’s downright ferocious. I wish I’d had the forethought to chain it up.”

 _It._ It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Davy's not engaging Baz in conversation very much if he's still referring to him as an 'it.' I think of Baz’s disdain for ‘fatuous stories.’ Flyer illustrations aside, Davy’s impression of the merman as a vicious animal also seems a far cry from the real thing.

“Salt for the water, cod for meals,” I repeat.

“You’ll need a few last things,” he says, patting down his pockets until he finds his keys. He holds them out to me and identifies them one at a time. “Ignore all except these: this one’s for the wagons, this one to the gate, and this unlocks the tank.”

I’m about to take them when he remembers something and pulls them back. Turning on his heel, he brings them over to the night stand in the corner of the room. “Would do to leave you a ration, just in case,” he murmurs.

He pulls back the table cloth to reveal a strongbox, and kneels down to unlock it using the smallest of his iron keys—one of the keys I’m meant to ignore, I’d wager. When he opens it, there are stacks of banknotes inside—far more than I’d ever thought a traveling carnival capable of earning. He plucks out a couple, folds them in half, and locks the safe. 

“Here you are, lad,” he says, delivering the goods to my open hands. “Use these notes sparingly. Emergencies only, understand?”

I close my fingers around them, my gob hanging open, no doubt. My hands have never held so much money. “Yes, sir—That is, Davy.” 

He claps a hand on my shoulder. “There’s a good lad. I already can’t remember how we ever survived without you,” he gushes.

“Just doing my job, sir.” I’m not sure what to make of Davy’s effusive praise. Whether he knows what I saw and he’s trying to smooth it over or if he’s just—how did Shep call it?—improving the truth.

With his hand still on my shoulder, he steers me out of the tent flap.

“May I offer you a bit of advice, Simon?”

I nod. “Sure.”

He leans in, more like a parent than an employer. “Be less modest,” he says, winking. “A man who controls his image controls his destiny, you know.”

“Right. Thank you, sir,” I say, then quickly add, “Davy.”

His words haunt me all the way back to my tent. From the flyers to the portraits, the embellishments and exaggerations all make sense now. 

He’s not improving the truth.

He’s controlling it.

  
  


___

Later that night, Agatha misses dinner. 

Without her, the fire pit's especially quiet; everyone’s suddenly too concerned with their codfish for drunken conversation. I don’t get halfway through my meal before I give up and head back to my quarters, nauseated as I am at thinking Agatha is too ashamed to join us. She doesn't deserve it. Judging by the fear-filled mortification on her face, she wasn't in Davy's tent by choice.

Man alive. _How_ does Davy wield so much power over these people? What can he possibly hold over them to inspire so much sodding loyalty? It couldn’t be the tiny Derringer he hides in that stained green morning coat with the dingy cuffs? 

I’m about to leave for Baz’s tent when it occurs to me that a man in possession of so many banknotes would never suffer the humiliation of a life in threadbare garments. Especially not a man like Davy.

I kneel next to my abed and pull out the box where I keep Ebb's keys and the old pig iron scraps—where I’ve stashed the notes he gave me. With my ironworker's eye, I examine them more closely. 

The dotted lines. Something about them seems just slightly off kilter. Imbalanced. I dig into my tool box for my compass, setting it against the paper and dragging it along the lines.

They aren’t parallel. The watermark seems slightly heavier than any banknote I’d ever handled as well. I dip my finger into the lamp oil and run it over the print. 

It smears.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. “Forgeries,” I whisper to the dark. 

And there were so many of them! A whole buggering safe full of them, and probably painted by his own studied hand. I turn off the lamp, tuck the banknotes back into the box, and shove it all the way under my cot; if there's an emergency while Davy Mage is away, I'll be paying for it with my own damned shillings. Assuming the bloody coins Davy pays me are even real, that is.

I wait for the rest of the carnival tents to go dark.

Then, under cover of a moonless night, I leave to see Baz.

“You’re late,” he snaps accusingly from the top of the tank.

I make my way around the cage and up the ladder. “I didn’t think you was the waitin’ type.”

“Of course I was waiting. There’s naught else to do in this infernal tank but wait,” he grumbles, flicking away an offending bubble. 

I take my seat on the lattice and yank off my cap. I can’t think properly after everything that’s happened today. The carnival in my keeping. Agatha in Davy’s tent. Nothing but shams and deception everywhere I bloody look.

And an imprisoned merman about to find out that I’ve got the key to his tank.

“Snow,” says Baz. “What’s wrong with you? You’re mangling your cap.”

“It’s been a day,” I mutter. 

He cocks his head to the side and waits for more explanation. I don’t even know where to begin to sort through today’s steaming pile of shite. The only good thing to come of it was Baz getting placed in my care, and I don’t think he’ll be as happy about it as I was.

I sigh. There’s no point in delaying the truth, is there?

“Davy’s leaving for a while. He’s put me in charge of the carnival,” I say. “Says I’m to look after you.”

Baz blinks. “Look after me,” he repeats.

“Means I’ve got the key.” I hold it up as proof.

For several moments, neither one of us says anything while the news sinks in. Baz watches my face in the lamplight, and when it seems the silence has reached an unbearable pitch, he speaks.

“You can’t free me, can you?” he says, barely above a whisper.

He’s gone completely still in the water. I’ve no idea how he's still floating. If it were me finding out the key to freedom wasn't enough to liberate me, I'd have sunk like a stone. 

“I wish I could,” I tell him. “Believe me, if I knew how, I’d do it. I definitely couldn’t get you back to shore on me own, and after everythin’ else I seen today, I’m not sure I could trust anyone here to help me if I tried. Davy’s got everyone bloody spooked.”

“I see.” Nodding slowly, he looks away from me.

“Baz, I’m... I'm so sorry."

I can’t bear the disappointment on his face. I lean over the bars. “I won’t give up, alright? So don’t you give up neither,” I promise. “And in the meantime, at least Davy’ll leave you alone. No one’ll harass you long as I’m watchin’ over you, yeah? Not that I’m a more welcome sight I reckon.”

He manages a sad grin in my direction. “You are a welcome sight, Snow,” he assures me. “I never expected to find a friend in this awful place.”

Warmth spreads out from the spot where Ebb’s cross touches my chest when I realise he means what he says. 

“Me neither,” I admit. I don’t know how to comfort him, so I give him the only bit of light I have to offer. “Seein’ you is the best part o’ my day.”

He chuckles ruefully. “A sad commentary on your day if I ever heard one.” 

“Not at all.”

Baz peers up silently at me through the lattice, uncertainty in his lovely eyes. The sight makes my heart ache, weak as it is after everything else I saw today. It’s all finally caught up to me, and the words fall out before my brain interferes. 

“Workin’ here’s been mucking up my sense o’ reality, ya know? I can’t hardly sort out what’s true an’ what’s not when everyone’s so used to puttin’ on shows with or without a stage. Everyone I see’s a bloody fraud,” I murmur. “But not you.”

Looking at his startled face is unbearable, so I stare at my wrinkled cap. 

“I’m supposed to look after this place... This carnival run by a man who forges banknotes, kills mermaids, an’ treats his own charges like they ain’t worth nothing. A right charlatan,” I mutter bleakly. “Don’t that make me a fraud by association?”

Baz shakes his head. “You’re not a fraud,” he says softly. “Simon Snow, you are real.”

I glance down. At the bars separating me from the water. From Baz.

And for the first time, I realise how badly I wish they weren’t there.

  
  



	5. The Tides and the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I very nearly ask him if he knows. If, when he fixes his piercing gray eyes on mine, he can see into my dreams and find himself there.

Looks like I might actually finish fixing this place in the seventeen days left until Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities reopens. I’ve been distracting myself from the more mortifying aspects of my workplace by following Penny’s advice: keeping my head down and my nose in my labour. All the structural improvements are finished, so I’ve continued onto the cosmetic ones, which I had thought meant less effort until scouring the first filthy tent twisted my back and left my fingers raw. (There are seven more to go.) They’ve probably never been scrubbed since the carnival’s been in Blackpool; the grime is all but permanently wedged under my fingernails. 

I’ve got no right to complain, though. Baz got the morbs after I told him I couldn’t free him. To cheer him up, I asked if there was something he’d rather eat than the dried cod Davy forces on him. He’s desperate for raw fish, so I’ve taken to using my savings to buy some from the marketplace in town in the mornings. 

Means I know what a turbot is now. I still don’t see a bloody resemblance.

Baz accepts the food gratefully, but insists I’m not allowed to watch him eat. Says I gape at him, which is embarrassing because it’s true. I can’t peel my eyes away, and though I’d say his being a mythic creature was to blame for my fixation, it would be a lie. 

There’s something else. An aura about him that defies the world holding him captive. Everything in Blackpool is sun and sand, soot and smoke, but Baz—from his voice to his movements—is made of a different element altogether. 

He _is_ the ocean, I think.

The more I learn about him and his world, the bigger I feel on the inside, overflowing with ideas of things I wish I could see and hold for myself. Every night I visit him, he pours more of the sea into my head, and I return to my tent feeling like the canvas walls have shrunk. 

We talk for hours, though they pass like minutes. I have only my company to offer, ordinary and dull as it is compared to his, but he seems to like my stories of growing up on the farm with Ebb and her goats, asking questions about things I never gave a second thought to in my life. (“What exactly is a banger, Snow, and why does it mash?”) 

He’s certainly still content to dispel all my assumptions about him and his kind.

“Are there very many of you, then?” I ask him one night. “Is there a whole school of merfolk?” 

“First of all, it’s a _harmony_ of merfolk, not a _school_ , you barnacle,” Baz corrects. “And not really. Our kind have been dying off for centuries. There aren’t nearly enough of us left to fill the oceans.”

“Dying? But you seem so…”—my eyes take in his strong, slender frame, and I blush—”...sturdy.”

“Seawater’s healing properties help keep us alive. There’s the magic part you were after, I suppose. Even so, we’re... more fragile than we look,” he says softly. He turns away, and I don’t need to see his face to know he’s thinking of his mother.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned it,” I murmur. 

“It’s not your fault.” He visibly shakes the thought from his mind. “The seas are changing. It’s not just the harpoons and hooks. Most of the harmonies have left for other waters. The kind without large fishing nets or steam-powered ships turning the oceans to acid.”

“Isle of Man seems like the worst place in the world to escape a net,” I observe. “Why go there?”

Baz frowns and sweeps his fingers in a figure-eight over the water. “I wish I could tell you. I’ve followed the currents all my life. This is the first time they’ve failed me.”

My ears trip over his words. “‘Followed the currents.’ What does that mean?”

He pauses to craft his words carefully. “It’s a kind of divination, you might say. Direction that only the tides can impart, immersed in them as we are,” he says. “When they call, we obey.”

I lay down on my stomach over the lattice. “Like a voice?” I ask.

“Something like that. We live by a different philosophy than men, Snow. Your kind worships your individuality. You cause yourselves needless pain in the delusion of being separate from each other and the world,” he explains. “Merfolk are different. We think of ourselves as waves on the water—unique and separate in outward appearance, but under the surface, joined in one great ocean. The tides unite us…. Guide us….”

As he talks, his eyes go soft. It makes my chest ache in a way that doesn’t frighten me. I can breathe just fine.

“I might never have approached the lady in the boat had it not called me. I’m not sure how to describe it so you’d understand,” he continues. “It’s just a feeling. A pull.” He clenches a fist over his stomach. “Here.”

“Nah, I understand that completely,” I say. “Maybe not when it comes to tides and currents, but I know what it’s like to feel pulled somewhere by something bigger than you. Something you can’t see, but you know it’s there by how strong it tugs on your heart. I felt that way when I met Ebb. I felt it when I left Watford an’ came here.”

“You felt tugged toward a raree show,” he sums up scornfully. “Sounds to me like your currents have failed you, too.”

I shrug. “Dunno about that, but if it hadn’t brought me to Blackpool, I’d still be breathin’ poison air an’ coughin’ up blood in the ironworks. I’d be by meself in the country, without a soul what gave a damn about me,” I say. “And I wouldn’t’ve met you.”

A smile—a real one—graces his gray lips and it’s the loveliest sight I’ve ever seen. “Well then,” he shrugs modestly, “who am I to argue with the tides?”

I chuckle, and it takes a moment to realise I’m laughing alone. I haven’t offended him—he’s still grinning. But the way he’s looking at me now... 

I very nearly ask him if he knows. If, when he fixes his piercing gray eyes on mine, he can see into my dreams and find himself there.

I tear myself away from his gaze. 

“It’s time I went,” I say. 

“Yes, it’s rather late,” he concedes, his smile dimming. 

If I didn’t think it would attract attention I’d just as soon avoid, I’d sleep on the floor beside his tank to keep him company. But this is for the best, I tell myself. However much he tolerates me—maybe even enjoys my company—Baz isn’t a nocturnal being, and I’m keeping him up. He’s looking much more dull and drawn now than he was when I first saw him, even if his wit's still sharp as a blade.

Before I go, I press my hand against the glass, and he rests his own against it. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I say.

He nods. His bittersweet grin glows warmly in the lamplight. 

I find myself thinking about Baz long after I bid him good night, turning everything about our meeting over and over in my mind. How glad he looked when he saw me. The sheen of the lamplight off his wet skin. The way my heart came to life as he spoke about being a wave on the ocean. 

When sleep finally closes my eyes, he’s still there. In my dreams, the iron bars and tempered glass don’t exist. There’s only the open sea, his arms around me, and his musical voice in my mind. 

I think I am the fish and he is the net. 

___

The day after Baz fills my head with talk of currents, I’m useless. I sit by the water basin with a mountain of filthy canvas, a scrubbing brush, good intentions and no sodding motivation. 

My whole life, I’ve never had the luxury of letting my thoughts blunt my productivity when there was work that needed doing. The alternative was starvation.

This isn’t like me at all. I’m not a _thinker_.

I hold my head between my palms and wish for Ebb.

I could confess everything to her. She’d put her cool hand on the back of my neck just like she used to, and tell me I’ll be all right. Pull another story out of her pocket or some sage bit of advice to drag my head out of the water and plant my feet in the ground where the tide couldn’t touch them. 

_I’m falling in love with someone I can’t have. Ebb, what do I do?_

I could ignore it before. Baz is objectively beautiful, and it was easy enough to write off my fascination as the natural effect of being exposed to a mystery of nature. But the more I see him, the more a different kind of current draws me in. I can’t shake him from my mind. 

He leveled the fortress around my heart the moment I saw his face.

Shame grips me by the chest. There’s nothing—no adage or proverb for a bloke who falls in love with a merman. A story like mine has only one ending. 

A broken heart and God’s judgment.

“You’re gonna have a fly rink on yer head if you keep tuggin’ on your hair like that,” comes a voice from behind.

“Fiona,” I say, wiping my eyes. “There something I can do for you?” 

“Damn’ if I know. By the looks of it, you ain’t fit to do much,” she says, sealing a new cigarette, but not lighting it. “Get up ye great sod. We’re takin’ a walk.” 

I look helplessly at the mountain of canvas before me. “But-“ 

“But nuffink. You been workin’ too hard, an’ ye’ve hit a wall,” she says. “Come on ‘fore I drags you by them lovely curls you likes ter tug.”

I leave my unwashed tents behind and follow her. Not because I think I need the break, but because Fiona is genuinely terrifying, and I don’t know what fire breathers do when they’re cross.

“I’m the only member o’ the company what chose to be here, ye know,” she says as we meander down the path to the promenade. “Everyone else were run out of options and beggin’ but me.” She looks sideways at me. “And now, you.”

“I wouldn’t say I weren’t beggin’,” I mutter. “There were no work elsewhere.”

“Nah, but you picked Blackpool. A lad like you coulda gone anywhere ‘n’ found a living,” she says. “You ain’t from here, country boy. You was lookin’ for something when you showed up, an’ that’s why you’re starin’ at the tents wishin’ they’d scrub ‘emselves.”

I swivel my neck and shoot her a skeptical look. She counters it with a knowing grin. “I used to stare at me own wash that way,” she remarks.

“Was that before or after the asylum?” 

“Don’t be an arse.”

We reach the rail that runs along the promenade and pause to watch the rain clouds roll closer to shore off the Irish Sea.

“I were a proper housewife once,” she says wistfully. “Cooked. Cleaned. Mended Nico’s sodding waistcoats. We was poor and I bloody hated it, but I loved ‘im so much when I married ‘im, I were willing to fit a square peg like me into a round hole just to be near ‘im.”

“So what happened?” I ask.

“There were always a little piece of me what wanted so much more than a life keepin’ house, ya know? A spark in here,” she says, tapping her chest. “I were always an odd duck, readin’ plays and wishin’ I were on a stage in Covent Garden. The wishin’ turned to needin’ after Nico started drownin’ hisself at the pub at night only to come back wantin’ what I weren’t willin’ to give ‘im, if you get my meaning.”

“It were true, then. That he’d chose the drink over you,” I say. 

“It were true, all right. And the more Nico drank, the more I fed the spark. One night, he comes into the kitchen after polishin’ hair at the pub, blatherin’ on ‘bout when we was gonna have children an’ be a proper family. So I says, ‘when you stop pissin’ away every goddamned farthing we ‘ave on ale, ye great prick!’ An’ what’s he do? He raises his hand to hit me, but I’ll be damned if he missed an’ put his fist right on the boiling kettle instead!”

My mouth falls open. 

Fiona tips her head forward and starts wheezing with laughter, gripping the rail of the promenade. “Nico were so drunk, he passed out right there on the rug. So I wrapped up his poor ickle daddle, packed my things, took the rest of his money an’ dropped me surname. Left him sleepin’ like a baby in the middle of the floor.”

“Christ, Fiona! You coulda been thrown in the gaol for that!” I gasp. “What’d you do?” 

“Went straight to Sanger’s Circus, I did,” she declares. “I were only nineteen. I weren’t no actress, but I knew I wanted a crowd. Marched right up to Lord Sanger himself and told ‘im I wanted to learn something no proper lady’d ever done before. So he takes me by the hand and brings me to the Fakir, and he says to ‘im, ‘This one’s got a bonfire in her heart. Teach her how to wield it.’”

I shake my head, my jaw still hanging. “Fiona, either that’s the biggest porkie I’ve ever heard, or you’re absolutely the most fearless lady I’ve ever met.”

She elbows me in the side. “You’ll see the truth with your own eyes soon enough, boyo,” she quips. Then, turning to face me she adds, “Point is, you and me are the lucky ones. Life ain’t taken away all our choices, even when we been tricked into thinkin’ it has. You can spend the rest of yer dreary days scrubbin’ canvas ‘cause that’s what the world’s told you you’re good for. Or you can ask yerself what you really want.”

I swallow hard and gaze at the sea.

“An’ if I’m not allowed to have what I want?” I ask. 

“Not allowed? Or too afeart to go after it?” she asks, sizing me up with her eyes. “If there’s something what makes your heart sing, follow it. Don’t waste yer damn life tryin’ to smother a spark what wants to be a blaze.”

  
  


___

As the clouds over the piers had foretold, it’s raining tonight, and I’ve brought Baz the catch of the day. When I arrive at the tank, he doesn’t notice right away, so I knock on the glass to get his attention. He turns to look at me and though he smiles, he seems different. Like someone’s dimmed his light. 

When I make it to the top, he revives as I unwrap the paper and show him his gift.

“Ah, salmon,” he sighs happily. “Neptune bless you.”

“You’re welcome,” I say. 

I hand it to him through the grill and turn around so he can eat. 

“Tell me that story again, Snow… the one from the other night,” he says through a mouthful of fish. “About the goat that ran away.” 

“Weren’t much of a story,” I laugh. “The goat got loose an’ I found it up in a tree, gnawing on old Mistress Possibelf’s unmentionables.”

He giggles and it sparkles like the water. “Land creatures are positively comical,” he sighs. “Do you miss working on the farm?” 

Ordinarily I wouldn’t like poking around the old abandoned corridors of my past. Feels too much like wandering about in the dark; you never know when you'll trip over something painful. But I’m never bothered when Baz asks about my life. As tactless as he is, when I turn over my memories to him, he handles them carefully. 

“I do miss it,” I admit. “Working on the farm were the best memories I had as a kid. All the days before Ebb were rubbish, so I can’t remember those much, but when she took me in, everythin’ changed. She’d seen I been neglected and left alone too long. My skin were hanging on my bones, and I had no words. I didn’t much like bein’ touched neither. She gave me the goats to care for so’s I could learn what kindness looked like, and once I got good at carin’ for the kids of the scruffy variety, I helped her look after the human ones.”

“She sounds enchanting,” he says. 

I sigh. “She was.”

“You can turn around now.” 

Shifting around, I find Baz gazing up at me with a curious expression, serious and penetrating. 

“That necklace you wear…” He glides closer. “Was it hers?”

I draw it out of my shirt. “Yeah. Gave it to me ‘fore she died. That and the keys to the farm are all I have of hers now,” I murmur. 

When I raise my eyes again, he’s still boring into me with his pupils. “Whotcha lookin’ at me like that for?” I ask.

“Not looking. Seeing.” 

My ears start burning up. “An’ what do you see?”

“I see an old man in a young body,” he says softly. “One who works too hard, gives too much, and gets far too little in return.” 

God help me, his eyes are an undertow.

I clear my throat. “What do you miss most about the ocean?” I ask lightly. It’s a selfish question. The way he sounds when he yearns for the sea, I can pretend the softness in his voice is for me. 

“Apart from freedom and fresh salmon, you mean?” 

I grin. “I guess. Yeah.”

He tilts back and looks up at the tear in the roof where the drizzle is making a puddle on the ground beside the tank. “The moon.”

“The moon’s not in the ocean,” I say.

“But the moon and the ocean are lovers. Companions in the night,” he murmurs wistfully. “When the moon is full and the sea is calm, it hangs large and looming in the sky, a magnificent beacon over the water. I’d go to the surface just to bathe in the silver light and feel the tides rise up to greet it.”

There it is again, that feeling. Like I’m wide open and full of something my heart is working hard to contain. 

“How do you do that?” I whisper.

He lifts his head to look at me. “Do what?”

“Talk that way. Like you’re speaking poetry,” I say. “I’ve got lovely thoughts, but they don’t never leave my mouth as pretty as yours do.”

Baz sits up in the water, and his smile fades. It’s then that I realise how poorly I’ve hidden myself from him. How plainly everything in my heart is written on my face. 

He looks at me like he knows.

“I think your words are pretty, Snow,” he says slowly, “just as they are.” 

I gaze breathlessly at him. “Is that right?” 

Baz nods. “Tell me your lovely thoughts.” 

I get down on my stomach and rest my chin on my forearm against the lattice. Then I reach through the bars as far down as I can until my shoulder is pressed against the iron. I don’t need to ask; as I open my hand to him, Baz reaches up to take it. 

My breath catches when I touch his skin. His long fingers are wet and cold, but they skate over my palm smoothly, the sandpaper quality they’d had when he first attacked me, gone completely. Maybe that only happens when he needs to trap something in his hands. (I’d let him trap _me_ in his hands.) 

He runs his fingers over my wrist, then presses his palm to mine, just like he always does, but there’s no glass between us now. 

I think about holding back what I want to say. But Baz is looking up at me with eyes as dark as the briny depths themselves, and I remember Fiona’s fearless words. 

_If there’s something what makes your heart sing, follow it._

“What if I told you,” I whisper, “that I dream about you?”

He smiles softly. “What do you dream?” 

Baz lets me run my thumb across his glistening skin. “That I’m under the water with you. Touching you. Kissing you,” I confess, my heart aching with every word. “In my dreams, I get to hold you in my arms all night. Reckon that makes me mad as a...” 

I don’t finish my sentence. His fingers have closed around mine. 

“Not mad,” he says, shaking his head slowly. 

“No?” 

“No.” He swallows hard. “Simon Snow, you don’t know how you tempt me.” 

Everyone in this place lies so damned much, I never know what to believe, but when I search Baz’s face, I find only honesty. My heart’s beating so fast, it may exhaust itself before I make it back down to the ground. 

“Come,” he says, his eyes shining. “Come into the water.” 

“But I… I don’t know how to swim,” I stammer. 

“I won’t let you drown.” 

“My lungs are rubbish…” 

“I’ll take care of you.” He opens his arms. “Come to me.” 

With my blood rushing in my ears, I get to my feet and unlock the hatch with Davy’s keys. I nearly fall over the side trying to take off my shoes and stockings, strip my shirt and roll up my trouser legs. Baz dips back into the water and resurfaces, his hair out of his eyes and fanning out behind him in a coal-black swirl. 

He reaches for me. 

I drop down into the tank with a loud _sploosh_ and make a genuinely embarrassing noise as the cold water meets all my bits and pieces. Laughing, Baz catches me gently about the waist, and I prop my hands on his shoulders. 

“C-cold,” I shiver. 

He grimaces. “That can’t be helped, I’m afraid.” 

“Nah, I like it,” I say. It’s the truth. Even with the rain overhead, the air is thick with heat, and the water is a relief. “Feels good.” 

We’re together. At long last. No bars, no glass—just us two, floating above the ground as his long tail treads the water in slow motion below us. We’re flying. 

Silence falls over us save for the rain and the drip of water off Baz’s chin. 

Up close, I’m afraid to look at him. His lustre has faded a bit since the first day I saw him, but he’s still so blindingly beautiful. Black hair drapes against his wet skin down to his shoulders, and, feeling safe in Baz’s grip, I reach up to touch it. It’s impossibly soft and slips through my fingers. 

His arm circles tighter around me, holding me firm above the water while his other hand lets go of my waist. With it, he grazes my cheek, then my neck, and it’s with no small measure of surprise that I realize he’s tracing the moles on my skin. His eyes take me in, and I thrill at the thought that he finds me as fascinating as I find him. 

When I let go of his hair, Baz takes my fingers and presses them against his heart. So I can touch him back. The smooth, taut skin under my palm feels like nothing I’ve ever touched before, and I can’t help myself—I slide my other arm around his neck so the backs of my fingertips can coast down the length of his chest and stomach. I watch, breathless, as Baz’s eyes close and my touch sends a shiver through him. 

“Is this the part where you drag me under, and I die in your arms?” I breathe. 

“You tell me,” he murmurs back. “Is that what you dreamed?” 

“Almost.” 

I cling to his shoulders. 

And I kiss his gray lips. 

He lets me linger there, my eyes closed and fingers holding on for dear life. Baz’s mouth is cold; it answers back tenuously, like he’s just as worried as I am that the worlds we come from will punish us for defying the natural order of things. 

When I pull away, he looks dazed. I wait for him to speak, but for once, I think he’s the one struggling for words. 

Oh, Christ, I’ve gone too far, haven’t I? 

I’m still hanging onto him—I’m wondering what kind of sin I’ve just committed—when Baz leans in to whisper, “Wrap your legs around my waist.” 

My heart’s lodged in my throat, but I do as he says. It frees his hands to slide up my back. Tenderly. Like I’m fragile as driftwood. 

Then _he_ kisses _me_. 

All my worries dissolve into the water when his lips part over mine. His arms surround me, holding me like I've never been held in my life. As if I were breakable. I want him more than I want to consider whether this is wrong, so I push my hand into his damp hair and dash the consequences.

It's so good. My dreams never prepared me for this. Baz kisses like he swims—in one fluid, graceful motion that starts on his lips and runs the length of his body. Every inch of him sets me alight, from the ridge of his spine to the plane of his hips where pale skin gives way to blue scales. In the lamplight, they sparkle like sapphires through the ripples. 

When he finally pulls away, I’m out of breath and not from wheezing. He touches his forehead to mine, and his smell—like the sea air when the tide is in and the sun is bright—fills my nose. I breathe it in. 

“You make me feel like I’m in the ocean,” I tell him. 

He caresses my cheek. “You make me feel like I’m holding the moon.” 


	6. Head Underwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on, Snow,” he murmurs, raising an alluring eyebrow at me. “You’ll be in good hands.”
> 
> I shake my head at this shameless attempt on my life, but I don’t even finish my food before I’m peeling off my suspenders. “You’re gonna be my bloody funeral.”

I’m doing some forgery of my own. 

It’s not a crime. I think.

Davy returns tomorrow, but if I’m to give back his keys, then I need a set too. Apart from spending time in the tank with Baz on a nightly basis, I’ve also promised not to give up on freeing him, and Ebb always said fate rewards those who prepare.

She also said lying men couldn’t be trusted further than you could pitch them, and Davy may as well be bloody Pinocchio.

Before dawn, I walk the path down to the beach with two pails, which I fill with wet and dry sand each. While everyone’s still sleeping, I haul them to the fire pit and make quick work of pressing Davy’s keys into a mixture of wet sand and dust, making four neat moulds inside an old biscuit tin. Turns out I’m not as nostalgic for Watford as I’d thought, so I use the pig iron I’d saved in the wooden box under my cot; takes longer to make my breakfast tea than it takes to melt the metal down over the fire pit in the ceramic pot Dev uses to make mash for our dinners. 

When the iron’s ready, I skim the impurities off the top with the poker and pour the metal into the casts. Cooling it takes the most time, but in less than an hour, I’ve got a new keyring and four cast iron keys.

Those years suffocating at the ironworks weren’t for nothing.

Davy returns by the early afternoon and immediately sends Penny to call me into his tent for reports on the progress I’ve made while he was away. I slip his keys in my pocket knowing the spares are tucked securely beside the keys to Ebb's farm, right where the pig iron used to be.

When I enter Davy's quarters, I find him in front of the mirror modeling a new suit, lime green and so bright it makes the rest of the room seem dipped in tar. 

“Hullo there, my boy,” he greets, tugging on his cuffs. “Punctual, as always. As you can see, I’ve made a small investment in advance of our opening day. What do you think?”

I can't imagine he didn't trade in an entire forged banknote for this verdant disaster, given the detailing on it. The buttons are brass with dainty fleur-de-lis embossed into them that sparkle against the green wool and white piping. He's even procured himself a foppish purple top hat to compliment the heather satin tie peeking out from under his collar. Add the purple and green-striped waistcoat and the entire outfit radiates an almost deranged quality. “It’s nice,” I say. “Quite… festive.” 

Preening, he turns to the side to inspect his profile. “As it should be. A master of ceremonies must stand out in a crowd in all ways, Simon. With a clean dress, a sharp hat, and a commanding voice, you can part the seas like Moses himself.”

“Reckon that’s true, sir—I mean, Davy,” I tell him. 

“Now, then,” he says, striding to the round table and gesturing to the chair across from him. “What have I missed?” We take our seats.

I tell him he hasn’t missed much, which is mostly true. During the day, with the company's help, I've put a new skin on the entire carnival, with structurally sound tents and stages, nearly all the canvases cleaned, and a brand new podium in the center of the main path. What’s left to accomplish is all polish.

"And the merman?" he asks, lighting up his pipe.

"He hasn’t given me any trouble," I say with as much indifference as I can muster, because I don't want to invite further questions. I conveniently leave out the bit where I’ve stolen away to Baz's tank in the dead of night for the past several nights to kiss him until my lips were sore.

“I’ve also just picked up the new flags like you wanted, an’ left them in the cart,” I add quickly. “Soon as you tell me where they go, I’ll hoist ‘em up.”

“Capital!” he exclaims, smiling wide in approbation. “I knew I could count on you.”

"Oh..." I dig inside my pocket and produce his keyring. “I suppose you’ll be needing these back, as well,” I say, placing the set of keys on his desk. 

“Well, now, let’s not be hasty.” He leaves them untouched on the table between us. Leaning in, he asks, “Pray, have you given much thought to what you’ll do once the carnival is back on its feet?” 

I shrug. “Dunno. Thought I might stay on as an extra hand, ‘case something needed fixin' or buildin'. If you’d have me, that is.”

“There's that modesty again," he chides, waggling a finger at me in mock disapproval. "It’s not a question of if I’d have you, Simon. You’d be an asset." 

“Thank you.”

With another puff on his pipe, Davy smooths his mustache and peers at me from under his furrowed brows. “That said, while staying on as a hired hand is not an unworthy end for a skilled labourer,” he muses, “I wonder... if there might be other, more lofty prospects you’d be willing to consider.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” 

He gets to his feet and strolls toward his desk, pulling a small photo out of one of the drawers. “I’m certain, by now you’ve heard the tale of how I inherited this little production,” he says, passing me the picture. There’s a portly, harmless looking man in an old-fashioned striped morning coat standing in what I recognize as the main path between the tents. He bears the same thin mustache as Davy.

"Is this... your father, sir?" I ask.

“Indeed. He was a decent showman of sorts, but an apprentice is always meant to learn from the master and exceed his expectations, you know,” Davy says sagely. “Whatever he taught me, I improved upon. I devoted my life to this establishment after he died, and look at how far it’s come.”

“It’s very impressive,’ I agree.

“Thank you, lad,” he says as I return the picture to his hand. “The facts are, this carnival wouldn’t be ready for its distinguished reopening without your help, which is why I have a very special proposition for you.”

He returns to his seat across the table from me. “An illustrious future is nigh. Mage’s Travelling Carnival of Curiosities is about to enter a new stage of evolution—bigger crowds, better exhibitions, and an income to make the pit shows at Brighton beach salivate—but I lack a proper apprentice. Someone clever who's willing to share the burden, learn the business and ultimately run the show under my experienced guidance.” 

My eyebrows fly up my forehead. “Yer talkin’ ‘bout _me_?”

He leans back and grins broadly. “Why not? You remind me of myself at your age, focused, hardworking and loyal. You’re an industrious fellow, the attractions respect you, and you’ve an eye for the modern. I daresay with some grooming, you’d be a perfect fit,” he exclaims. “And that way, I can retire one day, comfortable in the knowledge that my family’s legacy is in capable hands.” 

For one who's only ever counted his family on one finger, the idea of being part of a legacy sounds both ludicrous and terrifying. I stumble for words. “But I’ve no experience in show runnin’,” I say. “Weren’t it wiser to make an offer to one of the performers?”

Davy laughs so loud the table vibrates. “One of the _attractions_? Heavens, no! Those simple-minded brutes aren’t cut from the same cloth as you and me. Common freaks, exotics, and circus performers can’t be trusted with the run of a business. They’re far better off up on a stage where they can earn their shillings doing what they do best.”

“And what’s that?”

He shows me his tar stained teeth. “Why, providing the mirror from which man can discern his own superiority.”

Something heavy splashes into my gut. I try not to let it show on my face, but I’m sure it’s not working.

“I can see I’ve confused you. Allow me to explain,” he says, removing his hat. “You may find a traveling pit show a tad unsavory in its objectives, but I believe it serves a more elevated purpose than just diversion and entertainment for seaside tourists. When we display the abnormal, the deformed, and the deviant, the everyman grows an appreciation for the perfect, the divine, and the noble.” He leans forward and sticks a finger in my face. “And then, he _aspires_ to it.”

I’m sorely tempted to ask him if this philosophy motivated his lime green suit purchase, but I hold my tongue.

“Now then,” he continues, pulling on his pipe and blowing it out over the table. “What do you say?”

I don't breathe in. “I’m honoured you’d think o’ me for the job,” I say. “If it’s all right by you, I’d like a bit o’ time to consider your generous offer.”

He claps his hand on the table and rises to his feet. “As you like, Simon,” he says jovially. “But don’t wait too long. It’s a new century, my boy. ‘Time is money’ and all that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I tell him. 

“I’ve already got a spare set, so why don’t you hold onto these,” he says, threading his finger through the keyring and handing it back to me. “Get used to holding ‘em.”

“Will do,” I say, which is the honest response when one has two sets of keys to hold instead of one.

He extends his hand and I shake it, making sure I match his grip, then slide the keys into my pocket. On my way out the door, I catch him wiping his hand off on his lime green trousers.

I pretend not to notice.

___

  
Turns out Baz and Ebb both share in common a general appreciation for my stubborn recklessness. Baz wasn't sure if I'd have the courage to continue my visits to the tank now that Davy is back—he'd actively advised against it—but I'd made up my mind not to let Davy's presence bugger my nightly routine long before I saw him clean my handshake off his hand. If it means I have to leave later in the night after Davy's turned off his lamp and gone to sleep, then so be it. 

When I finally join Baz in the wee hours, he doesn't seem to mind.

“I’ve decided I am going to teach you to swim, Snow.”

I gawp at him through a bite of sandwich. (Staying awake requires additional sustenance.) “Swim?” I repeat. “Christ, why’d you want to punish yourself that way?”

“Because I’m bored, and also, I want to test my theory on the elasticity of human lungs.”

I snort a laugh. “Which is what?”

Baz fixes his scrutinizing eye on me. “That holding your breath for extended periods of time under water may increase your capacity for air.”

“Right. That sounds absolutely terrifying. No, thank you.”

“All right, all right,” he drawls, “I might also be partly motivated by a desire to spend time with your naked body underwater.”

I nearly drop my sandwich into the tank.

“Come on, Snow,” he murmurs, raising an alluring eyebrow at me. “You’ll be in good hands.”

I shake my head at this shameless attempt on my life, but I don’t even finish my food before I’m peeling off my suspenders. “You’re gonna be my bloody funeral.”

The rest of my clothing winds up scattered on the floor beside the cage. Wearing naught but Ebb’s cross and the skin I was born in, I drop through the hatch into Baz’s waiting arms. 

Christ, he’s irresistible like this. Hair soaked through, water beaded on his skin. I just want to press myself against him, but when I lean in to nuzzle his neck, he takes me by the forearms and holds me away from him. I’d think I was in danger if I wasn’t already familiar with the strength of Baz’s arms. They’re practically made of cast iron themselves.

“Patience, barnacle,” he scolds.

“Bleedin’ sadist,” I grumble.

He ignores my griping and lifts up his chin to look down his nose at me. “Now then. The first thing you’ll learn is how to float,” he says, sounding every bit as imperious as the princely title over his tank suggests.

I look warily down into the water below us, biting my lip. Perhaps it’s the lamplight, but it looks like we’re a hundred feet in the air.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got your arms,” he reassures me. “You’re going to lean forward, with your chest in the water, extend your legs behind you, and just let them hang.” 

I gulp. “And… what do I do with my face?”

“It can stay out of the water for now.” Smiling wryly, he adds, “Keep your eyes on me.”

“Gorblimey, I’ve never been so poked up in my life,” I say, shivering. “All right then.”

I’m gripping his forearms so tightly my knuckles turn white. Slowly, I lean forward, then lift my legs up one at a time so I’m on my stomach over the water. “Like this?”

“Perfect, Snow. Just relax,” he murmurs in that melodic way he does. “Breathe in through your mouth, then out through your nose.”

I try. In through my mouth. Out through my nose.

“Very nice,” he says. “Let’s take a turn about the pool, shall we?”

His tail unfurls elegantly beneath me, blue and silver, and he pulls me forward by my forearms, taking us in a large circle. I notice the sandpapery feeling is back on his palms, which I suppose confirms my theories about how he grips things in the water. 

Baz propels us around the tank, reminding me to keep breathing in his calm and steady tone. “All bodies came from the sea,” he hums. “It already knows how to do this, you just need to help it remember.”

“Good Lord, you keep purrin' at me like that, _this_ body’s gonna tackle _yours_ ,” I say, grinning at him through my next breath. 

Everything about this feels wonderful. I decide that floating is one of my new favorite things if it means getting an eyeful of Baz’s upper half. The water is always cool and pleasant in the steamy summer night air, and as we take several turns about the tank, the day's labour melts into the rivulets that run off my skin.

“You look like you’re ready to try dipping your face in the water,” he says. “Shall we?”

My heart does an uncomfortable flip in my chest. “I don’t… That is, what do I do? How will I breathe?”

“Well, you don’t,” he says, like it’s an absurd question. “Breathe in deep before you do it. And just… hold it while you’re under.”

Just contemplating it makes my lungs tense up. 

“No, no. Stop that. Stop fretting,” he whispers, sensing my anxiety. “Here. Shall I give you an incentive?”

“Wha—”

“Don’t forget, deep breath,” he says. Then, quickly taking my waist, he leans backward until his head disappears into the bubbles. The moment he’s under, he pulls my body over him so we’re parallel in the water—Baz facing up, me facing down. I’m bracing myself against his shoulders, so my head is still above the surface, but Baz is just below me smiling impishly through the ripples amidst a halo of black hair. 

Good lord, I just want to kiss him.

I suck in a deep breath, then lower my face into the water, my eyes squeezed shut and fingers digging into Baz's shoulders. To my astonishment, as soon as my head dips down, the world goes completely silent, and just like that: I’m weightless. Like the only thing the water needed to hold me up was for me to surrender to it. With both eyes still closed, I can sense Baz underneath me, a slow current moving along my skin. One at a time, his hands release my waist, and like a bloody miracle, I don’t sink.

A moment later, he takes my face between his palms and kisses my eyelids, so I open them. 

There he is. Beaming at me. 

I bring my hands to his cheeks and reach for his mouth, but he backs away, a teasing glint in his eye. I kick my legs out—clumsily, the way the goats would kick trying to get a foothold on a craggy cliffside—and somehow, it gets me closer to him. This time, Baz lets me catch him, trapping him in a kiss that nearly makes me forget we’re underwater, my leg hooking around his tail and fingers reaching down, gliding over the colorful plates that decorate his hips. I can’t hold in the air anymore, so I let it out through my nose the way he instructed. It floats upward in a stream of bubbles.

With an arm about my waist, Baz tips us back up above the surface, and the world splashes into bright, noisy focus.

I’m panting, exhilarated. My curls are dripping into my eyes, so I shake out my hair, whipping the water in all directions. 

“Ah, not in my face, you insidious urchin!” he cries, nearly dropping me to shield himself from the spray.

“That were bleedin’ brilliant!” I blurt out, clinging to his shoulders. “Did you see that?”

“Of course I did. I was there.” 

“Cor, it felt like flyin’! And you...”

I forget what I’m saying when I see the expression on Baz’s face. He’s watching my triumph with soft eyes and a broad smile. 

Like he’s proud of me.

“Well done, Simon,” he says. “You’ll be outswimming me before you—“

“I love you.”

Baz’s brain seems to freeze mid-thought at my words. My heart stops in kind. But I can’t take back what I've said, nor do I want to given how much I mean it. Naked as I am in the water with him, there’s nowhere to hide what I feel; it’s the truth that’s hung on the edge of my tongue since the moment he first touched my hand through the glass. 

Baz’s palms come to either side of my neck. 

“And I, you,” he breathes.

The next thing I know, he’s caught me in a kiss of his own, spinning us slowly around to press me into the glass wall. I’m surrounded in gray, blue, and silver, with his arms and tail closing tightly around me as if the Leviathan itself might devour us if he lets me go. I want to match his grip, but I couldn't if I tried—he kisses me so hard, my arms go limp.

An age passes before he finally tears himself away, the two of us breathless and dripping.

“Simon,” he whispers, “I daresay the currents were right when they brought me to you.” 

___

I don’t know what time it is when I finally leave Baz’s tent. I’m still floating. I’m a hundred bloody feet off the ground, soaring.

Happy.

It explains why I don’t immediately notice Penny standing outside of her tent in her dressing gown.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I gasp when my eyes finally stumble over her. “You nearly scared me to death! What’re you doing out here?”

She marches up to me and puts her finger in my chest. “No, what are _you_ doing?” she hisses. “I been watchin’ your tent for hours. And look at you—” She reaches up and tugs at my wet hair. “Gorblimey, you been in the tank!” she squeaks in horror.

I sigh mightily. “And what of it?”

“Mayhaps you fancy a spot in the Menagerie, stuffed and mounted on the wall—‘Behold the preserved remains of Simon Snow, world’s most foolhardy git’!”

“You’re a right busybody, you know that?” I scowl, striding past her. “Who gave you permission to skulk around like the bloody carnie police anyway?”

“I’m glad I did," she whispers, jogging to keep up. “Simon, I don’t know what you’re doing in there—“

“Davy asked me to look after him—“

“But you’re gettin’ attached to something what don’t belong to you!” she finishes.

“‘ _Something’_?” I say, stopping in my tracks. “Is that how you think o’ him? As a _thing_? Did that make it easier to tie him up an’ throw him in that tank?”

“Bleedin’ hell, do you hear yerself?” Penny pinches the spot between her eyebrows in exasperation. “All right,” she says, gathering her strength. “I don’t like thinking about what we did to get him locked up in there anymore ‘an you do. But you don’t know Davy like I do. All of us is still here ‘cause, at the end o’ the day, he knows we ain’t gonna cross him, an’ it means we don’t starve in the streets or get killed.”

She takes a step closer to me. “Right now, he thinks you’re loyal. But if you keep spendin’ time with that creature, one of these days you’re gonna forget who’s master o’ this place, an’ Davy runs too tight a ship to suffer people he can’t trust. You said you had no reason to cross him, Simon. But you’re givin’ yerself one, an’ you don’t even know it!”

I pace in a circle, utterly revolted. “All this sodding rubbish about loyalty,” I retort. “Is loyalty the reason Agatha left Davy’s tent lookin’ like she been roughed up last week? Ain’t she just keepin’ her head down?”

Penny blanches. “I didn’t say it were easy.”

“Christ, where do you lot draw the line?” I demand. “Have you all gotten so bloody used to lyin’ that you’re willin’ to pretend you ain’t livin’ in fear every day?”

“What choice do we got? Leavin’ would just mean trading one fear for another. You know that!” Tears build in the corners of her eyes. “I care about you, all right? I like you too much to watch Davy sink a bullet into you just ‘cause you took a liking to a fish man.”

“Don’t call him that,” I snap. 

“Whatever you call ‘im, he ain’t worth dying for!”

I rake a hand through my hair. “Listen. I ain’t done anything I regret. All I done for him is be his friend when he had none. Did you know that mermaid Davy killed were his mother?”

Her eyes widen. “Of course I didn’t,” she says, sounding less certain.

“Well, now you know. An’ you expect him to spend his days alone after Davy took the person what meant more to him than anyone in the world,” I tell her. “I been there, Penny. Before Ebb took me in, it were _years_ I spent locked in mine own head with no one to share the burden of bein’ abandoned an' forsaken by everyone what ought to’ve taken care of me. Without a friend like her, by now I’d be madder than a hatter.”

I point a finger towards the merman tent. “He don't deserve that. He might not be human, but he's _not_ that different from you an' me. You should’ve seen how he was the day I first saw him. His despair drivin’ him wild,” I say. “Maybe if you had, you’d‘ve known it as the very same despair what brought you here. Ain't you the one what said everyone here takes care of each other? What’s it take to be part of this bloody ‘family’ as you call it, anyway?”

She doesn’t answer, just shakes her head silently. An age passes when I start thinking we'll be standing there in the path together helpless and frustrated until the dawn.

“Damn it, Simon,” she groans at last, pulling her dressing gown around her. “Fine. I’ll keep yer bloody secret. But you’d best mind every step you take from here on out if you want ter live long enough to stay friends with the merman. If I noticed, someone else is sure to soon.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and nod. “I will.”

“It’s late,” she mutters. “We both best get some rest.”

“I’ll walk you back,” I offer, but she shakes her head and waves me off.

“Stop yer fussin', I’ll survive. But Simon?”

“Yeah?”

Penny takes off her glasses and tucks them in her pocket, revealing a set of tired brown eyes. “You’re right. We all need a friend,” she admits softly. “And that merman’s a jammy bastard for finding one in you.”

  
  



	7. A Murderer’s Apprentice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look down your nose at me if it makes you feel superior, but do you know what I do with assets that outlive their usefulness? Other less resourceful men discard their rubbish, but I’ve an entire menagerie full of things that were once pretty and profitable!”
> 
> My hands are balled into fists by my sides. My jaw is clenched so tightly, my teeth ache.
> 
> Damn his bloody Derringer. I’m gonna go off like a gun right now. 

My visits with Baz go longer and later into the night after that. By day, I’m practically sleepwalking through my duties, dozing where I stand with the paintbrush in my hand or climbing up tent poles with slothlike enthusiasm. The sun is relentless, bleaching the entire promenade in fiendish brightness, as though Phoebus himself were holding a magnifying glass under its rays. I stew under the canopies re-lettering the banners, watching tourists arrive by the trainful to cool off in the waves. Feels like some days I gulp down pails of water to survive the hours spent staring ruefully at the sea.

But the night time is a different story. 

After the sun sets, I come alive in the tank with Baz. Apart from the singular joy of spending time with a handsome and chatty merman, I find he’s a surprisingly patient swimming teacher—when he’s not chiding me for being so distracted, that is (though, in my defense, Baz’s lithe backstroke would disturb the focus of a monk). Whatever his theory on the ‘elasticity of human lungs’ was, our lessons are helping my breathing as well. I haven’t had an attack in days. 

More and more, Baz hangs off to the side to observe or lets me lead him around the pool. In the last week, I’ve learned to swim frontwards and backwards, tread water, and hold my breath for as long as it takes to recite “God Save the Queen” in my head twice through. I can even dive down and touch the bottom now, which came as a shock to us both the first time I did it. 

He says I have a natural proclivity, but it turns out swimming’s quite easy if catching Baz in my arms is my reward at the end of a lap around the tank. 

Christ, I love him. For someone wholly unused to having words within reach, I find myself repeating those words in my mind all the time. I’ve never felt this way about anyone—like their arms were the fated destination of a lifetime of wandering. I’d always suspected love was meant for other blokes—the sort whose hearts hadn’t been stunted or misshapen from the lack of it before they’d ever kissed a girl. Imagine my astonishment when a merman conjured the feeling so quickly, so powerfully, the mighty steam engine itself couldn’t match it. 

Maybe my heart wasn’t stunted after all. Maybe it just needed air.

Sometimes I forget the circumstances that brought us together. I’ve trouble reminding myself that, as free as he makes me feel, neither of us is really free. Penny’s probably still horrified at how reckless I’m being, visiting Baz for hours each night with Davy so close by, but I can’t seem to make myself care enough if the alternative is staying away. 

This is the thought that gets interrupted on the way to Baz’s tent when I notice there’s already a lamp on inside it.

I stop dead in my tracks. There’s someone speaking in there as well. 

Davy.

Something black and smoldering ignites in my chest at the sound of his voice. I don’t know what to do. If I were in less control of myself, I’d rush inside in a whirlwind of flying fists to drag him out by his tiny mustache, but then what might happen? (According to Penny, a bullet to the chest, that’s what.)

All right. _Think_. Baz is valuable to Davy. He’d gone through too much trouble to catch Baz just to hurt him two nights before the grand opening.

It’s a small comfort, but it’s enough to dampen my urge to fly in without my head on. I slink off behind the tent and try to listen.

He’s furious.

“...Been here nearly a month and _still_ fail to appreciate the boons this environment affords you,” he declares hotly. “How much safer do you think you were out there? Here you can be cared for, preserved, glorified by the masses! Their patronage will keep you alive! Do you really think people will come from miles around to see the eighth wonder of the world if all it does is scowl at them from the bottom of a tank?”

Davy waits for an answer, but I know Baz. He won’t reply.

He once told me a merman’s voice is his most valuable possession, and if they haven’t earned the honor, no one on land hears it unless they’re about to die a watery death.

“Fine! Just... _fine!_ ” Davy snaps. “Look down your nose at me if it makes you feel superior, but do you know what I do with assets that outlive their usefulness? Other less resourceful men discard their rubbish, but I’ve an entire menagerie full of things that were once pretty and profitable!”

My hands are balled in fists by my sides. My jaw is clenched so tightly, my teeth ache.

Damn his bloody Derringer. I’m gonna go off like a gun right now. 

“Your resistance to authority is a temporary problem,” he goes on. “A bit of stuffing can turn anything into a curiosity people will pay two shillings to—”

Suddenly, I hear a massive splash of water followed closely after by Davy’s shriek. It frightens me so well, I almost dash into the tent, Derringer be damned.

“Argh! You… you bloody _ingrate_!” he roars, the sound so far removed from Davy’s droll and manicured speaking voice that it stuns the rage right out of me. “Mark my words, you’ll tame your goddamned spleen if you don’t want to wind up harpooned like that bloody mermaid!”

Heavy footsteps get softer as Davy stomps away from Baz’s tank. I peek my head around to see him march out soaked in water down to his skin, swinging his lamp and grumbling furiously to himself.

There’s the dark side everyone’s been telling me about. Davy’s a proper madman.

I wait for him to disappear inside his quarters before I dash inside the tent. I don’t turn on the lamp—the risk feels too great—but the moon is waxing, and after my eyes adjust, I can see Baz leaning against the glass with his head in his hand.

I give a gentle tap to the tank. Baz startles and looks around, not seeing me at first. When he hears my feet climb up the rungs, he meets me at the surface.

“You shouldn’t have come tonight,” Baz whispers loudly. “He could come back.”

“I doubt it,” I say. “Not while he’s soaked an’ hissin’ like a waterlogged cat. Besides, the tank’s probably the safest place to hide from a bloke with naught but a pistol. Didn’t he say it’d take a cannon to break this glass?” Baz watches me anxiously as I strip off my clothing and slide into the water as quietly as I can.

“I very nearly stormed the tent when I heard him speaking to you like that,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

“Fine. Just a bit tired,” he says softly. 

With my arms around his waist, I swim us toward the wall where I can hold the rim of the glass with one arm and tuck my legs in, making a seat for him to rest against me. As I do, he folds in the crest of fin on his tail and lets me steer him onto my lap, laying his head on my shoulder. I kiss his saltwater hair.

“What did he want with you?” I ask.

He shrugs. “‘Return on his investment,’ he said, whatever that means. I think he wants a dog, not a merman,” Baz mutters. “A yapping, obedient thing that'll do tricks. Thick-skulled walruses like him can’t understand merfolk have no masters.”

“I’d wager he acts that way ‘cause no one’s ever denied him anything,” I remark.

 _A man what never suffers disappointment stays an infant_ , Ebb liked to say.

Baz sighs. “I’m less than surprised.”

His voice sounds thinner than usual. I lift Baz’s chin to see his face, and it lances me through the chest to find sadness in it. “Listen to me,” I whisper. “Don’t you let a word he says darken your heart. Davy’s blind an’ barkin’. He‘s lookin’ at you, but he ain’t seen you properly.”

Baz touches two fingers to the cross hanging from my neck. As he stares at it, he says, “I want to know what _you_ see, Simon.”

If words could only do him justice.

I cover his hand with mine. “I see someone strong, brave, and too pure for this world. With a heart as wide as the ocean if it were willin’ to take a sad, broken thing like me into it. You saw a bloke what’s been starved for air and love, an’ you gave him both. You’re better than a man,” I whisper. “You’re a miracle.”

He gazes at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, his eyes glittering under the faint glow of silver moonlight overhead. 

“You lied to me, Snow,” he says.

“When?”

“When you said your words weren’t as pretty as your thoughts.”

I grin and thread my fingers through his hair. He’s so lovely my heart aches to look at him. “The effect of your influence, innit.”

Baz leans in, and when he kisses me, it makes the cage around us vanish. In the shelter of his arms, we could be miles away from the carnival drifting together on a calm sea, two lovers floating in a universe of stars.

It gives me the courage to ask a question that’s haunted me for days. 

“Baz… do your kind make love?” 

He pulls his face away to look at me, and even in the water’s chill, I can feel myself blush. 

“We do," he says quietly.

I've no idea how to proceed. “Were it possible…? That is… With someone...”

“I’ve the required anatomy, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, chuckling. “I’m just not exposed like you are.”

My face is so hot now, the water on my cheeks is about to scald right off. “O’ course. All right, then...”

Baz laughs at my stumbling, but then his amusement gives way to something else. A glint in his eyes. It cuts through the shadow surrounding us and brands itself into my memory.

“Would you make love to me, Simon?” he murmurs, like it’s a secret. Something for my ears alone to hear.

I can’t see him clearly enough in the dark to understand his meaning. “Are you askin’ ‘cause you’re curious? 

“I ask because I want you.”

Lord help me. It’s all I can do not to swoon on the spot. I raise a hand to his cheek and trail my thumb across the gray seam of his lips. “I’d give you all of me if I knew how.”

“It’s different from the ways of men,” he says carefully. “Merfolk become one, body and soul, under the water.”

“Ah. I see.” My face falls. Baz shakes his head and shifts off of my lap to face me.

“No, you don’t see,” he says, moving a wet curl from my eyes. “It means everything I am—my thoughts, my feelings, even my breath—will be tied to you. A part of you. You might find it… overwhelming.”

Despite being steeped in water up to my shoulders, my mouth still goes dry. 

“I want to be overwhelmed,” I breathe. “Just tell me what to do...”

Baz moves in closer. His fingers graze my hip, slide down my thigh, then pull my leg around his waist so he can press himself flush against me. Below, his tail curves around my other ankle; we’re so completely entwined that, in the dim light, I can’t tell where his body ends and mine begins.

When his eyes close, a voice enters my mind clear as a bell. 

_Shall I show you?_

I pull back. “Was that—?”

And the question dies on my tongue, extinguished by his cold mouth.

This kiss… This kiss is different. It pours down my spine with the rush of a breaking dam. Baz’s lips gently float to my jaw, then my throat, then into the dip between my collarbones; I nearly forget I’m still holding us above the water as he tips my head into his open palm to make room for his mouth. His other hand skims downward over my chest and my belly, then further, sending tremors through me like lightning has struck the water. 

He draws us away from the wall, and when he comes back to my mouth, I can hear the steady beat of his heart in my ears and my own pulse slowing to match it. His body warms against my skin; I can’t tell if it’s because he’s heating up or I’m going cold. Feels like my blood’s been mixed with seawater. 

It’s my curse that I struggle so much for words. I can’t find any to describe the moment it happens. When heaven meets earth between us. My eyes drift closed, and I’m lost. Gone. I’m drowning in him. 

_Please,_ my thoughts whisper to him. 

_Deep breath, love._

I inhale. 

Then he pulls us under the water.

___

August arrives the following day as hot and blazing as the devil’s crucible. We reopen tomorrow, and everyone’s excitement is blunted by dread of the heat, knowing the already sweltering tents will soon be filled to bursting with spectators. With nothing left to do but eat and wait, we all sit around the fire pit with our dinners, quiet with anticipation.

As I’m chewing another tough piece of cod, I look around with satisfaction at all the tents I’ve cleaned, rebuilt, and repainted.

Penny catches my eye. “Y’ done well, Simon,” she says, and a rumble of agreement ripples through the company. “This place ain’t never looked so good, an’ that’s the truth.”

“Pity you’re gonna have to clean my melted remains off my stage tomorrow,” says Agatha gloomily. “I’ll be right peaky after a day standin’ on me head in this heat.”

“Speak for yerself. I’ve got to spend all day strapped to this tosser here and his gamey armpits,” Dev says, elbowing Niall in the side, which Niall rewards with a newspaper thwap to Dev’s head.

“Beggin’ yer feckin’ pardon, but you can all bugger right off with yer whingin’,” says Fiona, lighting up another fag. “None o’ you is breathin’ actual fire.

“I hope the Merman takes all the patrons. Give us a bit more air to breathe in,” Dev remarks and pours himself a cup of absinthe.

I clear my throat. “You think the merman’s gonna attract that many spectators, do you, Dev?” I ask, trying not to look too interested.

Penny glances at me over her spectacles. I ignore her.

“Cor, you joking?” Trixie chimes in. “That beast’ll earn this establishment a permanent home in London proper as soon as a single person sees him.”

I gulp down my bite without chewing it. “London proper?” I repeat. “Is that what Davy’s after?” 

They all look at each other like I’m the last arrival to a tea party.

“It’s what we’re _all_ after,” says Shep. “God, can you imagine it? We’ll get a nice corner on the West End where we can make enough dough to rent a decent apartment instead of camping out by the shore like a bunch of drunken nomads!”

Trixie downs the rest of her liquor. “Whotcha mean _‘like’_ a bunch o’ drunken nomads?”

I try to do as Shep says and imagine life in an actual city, but I can’t see it. With the carnival housed in brick and stone, would Davy even need me around? What would happen to Baz? 

I choke down the last of the cod, then get to my feet. 

“Well, seein’ as we open tomorrow,” I say lightly, “I’m gonna take a last look around. Make sure I’ve polished the details. ‘Dot the i’s’, as you say, right Shep?”

“And cross the t’s. Go forth, my friend,” he says, tipping his cap to me.

“‘Night, Simon,” says Penny, looking hard at me as I back away.

I’m nearly out of sight of the fire pit when I hear the quick crunch of footsteps over my shoulder. I turn back to find Agatha running toward me.

“Simon,” she pants. “Have a moment?”

I hazard a glance at Baz’s tent and try not to look distracted. “Yeah, o’ course.”

Her eyes dart about to make sure no one is near enough to hear before she speaks. “I just wanted a chance to talk after… Well, I know you seen me coming out o’ Davy’s tent,” she begins, wringing her hands and staring at the ground. “I been wantin’ to say something an’ I just been so ashamed—“

“Agatha, you really don’t have to—“

“Yes, I do,” she insists. “See, I knows what it looked like an’ I didn’t want you gettin’ ideas about me bein’... immoral.“

I sigh, incredulous that she’d think, in a contest between her and Davy, I’d find Agatha immoral. “I’d never think that of you. I’m not the judgin’ type, an’ I says it ‘cause it’s true.”

“Ain’t no such thing,” she contends. “Everyone’s the judgin’ type. Just depends where your compass points.”

I seem to remember Niall saying the same thing, more or less. Now that she's saying it, I realise I don’t know how to argue that logic.

“I’ve got someone I take care of, see? An old schoolmate, Ginger. Her monster of a husband left her high an’ dry when consumption took hold of her an’ she weren’t no more use to ‘im. So she came to me, as I were her oldest friend. When I tell you, Simon, she were barely surviving when I took her in. Thin ‘an melancholic, she was. So I started workin’ at the burlesque to pay for extra food and care. But… well...”

Her voice trails off. “But what?” I prompt.

“But it weren’t enough. Nothing I did was _ever_ enough,” she says, looking down at her hands. “When Davy found me, he jawed about my talent and promised me a wage what could take care of Ginger an’ me both if I joined the carnival. The offer sounded so good, I thought I were dreamin’. How was I to know there’d be... conditions?” 

My blood runs cold. “What kind of conditions?”

Agatha lets out a ragged breath and holds herself around her middle. “It ain’t for me to talk about.”

I knock my cap off to rake at my hair. “Man alive, Agatha…” 

She throws up her hands in exasperation. “I _know_. You must think I’m a perfect idiot for landin’ meself in a fix like this,” she hisses. “But I make more here than I could make anywhere else, an’ maybe if I had just my skin to look out for, I’d be off on a different stage followin’ my bloody dreams ‘stead o’ tyin’ meself in knots in that tent tomorrow. Ginger needs me. An’ that means I need this Carnival.”

Agatha’s story settles in my heart like pins. I rub at my temples. “Crikey, I don’t know how to square with this. Everything I learn about Davy turns my stomach worse than if I’d feasted on ten pounds of that minging codfish,” I groan. “I think Davy’s the only man I’ve ever met what earned my harsh judgment. He’s a bloody villain in a lime green suit. To think he offered me an apprenticeship!”

Her eyes light up. “An apprenticeship!” she gasps. “Oh, Simon… You’re going to take it, aren’t you?”

“What? Why on earth would I take it?” I say. “Ain’t you just finish tellin’ me what a bleedin’ wolf Davy is?”

“So? Wouldn’t an apprenticeship mean you’d take over for ‘im after a while? He shows you the ropes, an’ eventually the carnival’s in the hands of someone who ain’t a villain, yeah?”

My mouth hangs open. “Well I… I never thought about it that way.”

“Well, start thinking, Simon! You’ve already rescued this place from _lookin’_ like hell. If you took over, you’d be savin’ us from the actual fiery pit. You’d be a bloody hero!” she says passionately.

“But Agatha,” I argue. “I can’t. His hands are so dirty… What if bein’ his apprentice winds up, you know… staining mine?”

She takes both my hands and squeezes them. “I known plenty o’ men in my time, mate. These hands won’t get stained. You’re as golden as that cross what hangs ‘round your neck.”

I feel a bit dizzy. What if she’s right? I could do more than just fix the stages and freshen the paint, couldn’t I? These people were all climbing out of the rubble of their lives when Davy offered them refuge and gave them bondage instead. He treats everyone here like another oddity for the Menagerie, and you could almost believe they didn’t mind it if not for the fear in their eyes.

I could be different. I don’t know how to be on a stage or run a show, but then I’ve never come across anything in my life I couldn’t master with a bit of hard work, be it farming or casting—or swimming, for that matter. 

I can almost see it: me standing in the square between the tents, Fiona breathing fire in the middle of a throng, calling spectators in to meet my talented friends. 

Just like Buffalo Bill. 

“I dunno,” I say. “You really think I’d make a good showrunner?”

Agatha beams at me. “Take it from one who knows. If needs must, you can be any bloody thing you want.”

“If needs must,” I say, more to myself than to her.

“Well”—she motions back to the fire pit—“I best be gettin’ back to dinner.”

She starts to walk away when I stop her. “Agatha?”

“Yeah?”

“If there weren’t Ginger to worry ‘bout, what would you’ve done instead?”

She smiles wistfully. “I always thought I’d like bein’ a ballerina.”

I put my hands in my pockets. “You’d’ve been brilliant, I think.”

  
  
  


When I’m far enough away to get lost in the shadows, my stroll turns into a run. I enter Baz’s tent with the lamp and find him swimming slow circles in the water, which I’ve confirmed is how he paces. Turning back around, he sees me and stops.

The water looks a bit murky tonight, tinted green. That’s odd; I’d just refreshed it earlier this week. I make a note to change it as I climb up the iron rungs.

When I’ve arrived at the top, Baz is still under the water, so I get down on my hands and knees and call down softly. “Darling,” I say. “I”m here.” 

He slowly approaches the water’s edge. When his face breaks the surface, I pale at the sight of him.

Baz’s eyes are set in dark circles, as if all our late nights have caught up to him at last. It was impossible to tell when we were together in the dark last night, but it’s unmistakable in the lamplight. He looks ill.

I pull off my suspenders and start taking off my shirt so I can join him in the water, but his threadbare voice stops me.

“I don’t think you should come in today.”

My hands pause over my shirt buttons. “You do look unwell,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“It’d be good if I got a closer look at you. See if I can—”

“Simon,” he interrupts. “I need to say something.”

Unease settles over me. “All right. I’m listening.”

He offers me his hand. Lying on my stomach on the bars, I reach down through the lattice to take it. “You said you loved me,” he murmurs. “Is it still true?”

His voice sounds tremulous. Fraught. I’ve never heard him like this.

“O’ course it is,” I murmur back. “A hundred times truer now than the day I first said it.” 

He presses my fingers between his palms. “Then there’s something I need you to do.”

“Anything.”

Though they’ve clouded over a bit, his eyes are as entrancing as they were the very first time I laid eyes on him. They immobilize my heart from a distance when he squeezes my fingers and whispers, “Free me.”

I pull my hand back. 

“ _Free_ you?” I repeat. “But we just… I thought...” 

“Simon, look at me,” he commands, and I do. 

It happened gradually—I’d barely paid it attention—but there’s no denying the change. His skin was luminous as a pearl when I first saw it, and now it’s as dim as the canvases I’d spent weeks scrubbing. His tail, once sparkling with sapphire and silver, now matches nearly everything else on the land—coated in a thin sheen of gray. Even the webbing on his fingers looks papery. 

My heart drops as I put the clues together. Baz hanging off to the side during our nighttime swims. How he’d taken to letting me carry him around. I had too many stars in my eyes to notice what was right in front of my nose.

Baz has been fading ever since the very day he caught me by the neck. 

“You’d said you felt tired last night,” I say. “When we… was it… too much?”

He offers me a wan smile. “No. I don't regret anything we did last night,” he says reassuringly. "If anything, being with you made it so much easier to ignore.”

"Made what easier to ignore?"

He pauses to gather his words. "Simon... I'm dying."

In an instant, all the air in the room seems to escape.

"No. That can't be."

"You know I wouldn't lie to you," he insists. "This tank is an hourglass. Every moment I spend in it, the sand runs out.”

“I know it seems that way,” I say. “You’ve only lost some o’ your sparkle, but the blame is mine, keepin’ you awake so late. I’ll take better care of you. I’ll dig you a bloody lake—”

“Simon, _no_ ,” he argues. “I _need_ the sea. My kind aren’t meant for tanks or cages. I can’t live like this… no matter how much I love you.”

My body stiffens as his words take hold. “So then… you’re askin’ me to just… release you... an’ never see you again?”

“That’s not what I said.” 

“You don’t need to say it. Baz, even if I figured it out—how to free you—you’d be askin’ me to give you up,” I say. “I can’t follow you into the ocean, can I?”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” he asks quietly.

I blink at him. “There’s not a question, is there? I’m human.”

“But something else is stopping you. What is it?” he asks. “What’s your tie to this place that makes you hesitate?”

“I—I don’t know what you want me to say,” I stammer. “This place is running on forged banknotes. If I got you out, the carnival could go under, and I’ve got people here—friends—who rely on this place to survive.”

“ _Friends?_ ” Baz gapes at me in dismay. “You’d said you needed others to get me out—”

“Well, yes, but—“

“And now that you have allies, you’d have me die just to keep me close and earn your friends a living?” he demands.

“Of course not! Because you’re not going to die!” 

He passes a hand over his face and takes an angry turn about the tank. “You said you wouldn’t give up trying to free me,” he snaps. “You _promised_.”

“Baz, please,” I say. “I didn’t give up. I just… I found a better solution.”

He stops swimming and spins his head back to look at me. 

“Listen,” I say, desperation beginning to squeeze at my lungs. “Davy’s offered me a chance to learn the run o’ this place. I could change it for the better for everyone, includin’ you. We could be together, maybe even leave Blackpool. I could show you all the things I’ve only ever told you about. Hell, I could introduce you to the goats on the farm if I thought it’d cheer you.” 

“A murderer’s apprentice,“ he says. “How quaint.”

“That’s not… If I took over, everything would be different,” I argue, my voice rising in spite of me. “No one would have to live in fear anymore, because I’d be someone they could trust not to treat ‘em like they was property!”

Baz barks a bitter laugh. “You mean the way you’re treating _me_?”

“I’m tryin’ to protect you!” 

“Protect me. Keep me,” he spits. “Either way you sound like Davy.”

I recoil at his words. By the hard expression on his face, I think he might even mean them. “How can you say that?” I rasp.

Baz says nothing. Just fixes his cold stare on the water. 

“Why can't you understand? My whole life I’ve never loved someone as much as I love you,” I confess. “How can you expect me to cast you back to the water when I’ve only just found you?”

He sighs and looks despairingly up at me through the bars. “So says every man who’s ever hooked a fish.”

“Darling—“

“Carnival opens tomorrow, Snow,” he murmurs, and I flinch at the sound of my last name. “I’m sure there’s something else that needs your attention, so why don’t you go tend to it?” 

And without another word, he dips below the water’s surface. I watch, gutted, as he drifts slowly down to the bottom corner of the tank away from me.

“Baz...” I call as loud as I can without drawing outside attention. “Baz!”

When he doesn’t come, I climb down the iron rungs and place my hand against the glass. I curl my fingers around my cross and stare into the water, praying for him to look at me. 

He doesn’t.

He’s back in the shadow, where he stays until I finally get the message that he’d rather be alone.

And then I leave him.

That night, I struggle to sleep. The heat in my tent is so thick, I feel it sticking to my lungs like coal tar. Crying in my pillow has only made it worse; I’ve started coughing, so I sit up, light my lamp and try to breathe the way Baz taught me to.

I can’t stop thinking about him. The way he glared at me. Accused me of standing by and watching him die. I can’t remember it without a sinkhole opening in my stomach.

 _What’s your tie to this place,_ he demanded, as if anything I said would’ve made a bloody difference. A month ago, I’d have told him no one. Ebb died, and it marked the end of my ties to anything. Maybe that made it easier to get pulled into the center of Davy’s criminal tempest, but then, maybe a tempest is where the currents needed me to be. 

I should accept Davy’s offer. I could help these people, couldn’t I? I could protect Baz from every net, harpoon, and steam engine this side of the Irish Sea just keeping him here with me, close. Safe.

If only he were the sort who wanted to be kept.

If only he were more like me.


	8. The Prince of Atlantis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you ready to behold this wonder of the deep? Only at Davy Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities will you witness this miracle of God’s own creation: a living... breathing... merman!” bellows Davy, and the audience, ravenous for more, squeals with delight.

Opening Day.

For once, the rest of the company wakes with me at dawn, and there’s a bloody line to the bath basin as we all rinse off the night’s sweat and ready ourselves for the patrons. Davy, festooned in lime green with white piping, gathers us at the fire pit for some final thoughts before he opens the gates, and it’s the first time I get to see Penny’s handiwork on everyone at once. The costumes are a surprisingly bright and jolly compliment to my refinished facades. Even Fiona looks festive leaning on an upright steamer trunk in a ruby red bustle and fishnet stockings as she puffs on her cigarette.

I wish I could muster the same celebratory anticipation as everyone else. Buffalo Bill could show up today with Annie Oakley on his arm, and I’d still feel like I’d left my insides in the merman tent.

“Gather ‘round, everyone, gather ‘round,” says Davy hastily, corralling Dev and Niall who move like treacle as a rule by virtue of being tethered on one side.

Once we’re surrounding him, Davy claps his hands and rubs them together. “This is an historic day indeed,” he begins. “Beyond the gates wait nearly one hundred patrons eager to see your beguiling faces. Today, they will experience an attraction unlike any Blackpool—or Great Britain—has ever seen!”

It’s impressive, the presence Davy wields before a crowd, even when that crowd is made up of his own charges. Everyone exchanges wide eyes and toothy grins, which I reckon means that one hundred patrons on opening morning is a decent turnout.

“Today the pit show industry shall change forever, as we unveil a marvel so spectacular, I would not be surprised if Queen Victoria herself paid the price of admission to see it,” he declares. “We must all rise to the occasion and prove we are not some common stick and rag outfit. Would anyone care to recite the code of conduct?”

Trixie volunteers. “Smile wide, don’t speak ‘less spoken to, and if someone gets handsy, it’s no refunds.”

“Capital. Well done, Trixie.” Davy looks about the circle until his eyes land on me. “Simon!” he exclaims. “We owe a debt of gratitude to this lad for getting our establishment back on its feet, do we not?”

Everyone applauds, setting my ears aflame.

“I daresay this industrious young man will be staying with us for a long time, as it is my great pleasure to inform you all that I have offered Simon an apprenticeship... and he has accepted!”

A second round of clapping follows, and though I try to smile, my face tenses up so much I’m afraid it comes out more like a grimace. Penny catches my eye and even with that blasted periwig on her face, she looks like she can’t tell whether to rejoice in the news with the others.

“Now then, it’s places for all of you,” he commands. “Gates open in 10 minutes! Don’t forget the code, smile wide, and keep them coming back for more!”

Everyone disperses, and I’m about to follow when Davy grabs my arm and tugs me in the other direction. “Today, you are my shadow, Simon,” he says, placing a heavy arm around my shoulder. “Your apprenticeship begins right now, which means I can’t have you roaming about looking like a regular maintenance man.” He gestures vaguely at my workman’s attire.

I follow him into his tent where he disappears behind the partition screen. “Here you are,” he says, emerging with a pressed brown frock coat, dress shirt, vest and trousers. It takes me a moment to understand it’s for me.

“Davy, this must have cost you a fair bit ‘o brass,” I say, taking the suit from his hand. I’m momentarily stunned at his generosity. (Could be I’m just relieved it isn’t lime green.) He must have anticipated I would accept the apprenticeship to have had this suit already on hand. “Thank you. I’ve never owned a suit so nice.” 

“This is part of your training, my boy,” he says, smiling. “If you are to be a showman, you must ascend above your working class trappings. Now, put it on and meet me at the merman tent.”

Davy leaves me in his quarters staring dumbly at my clothes, unsure of what to think. I’ve never been on the receiving end of niceties—an ironworker’s life leaves little room for extravagance, even in the gift-receiving sense—so I can’t tell if this suit has more attached to it than the pewter buttons and silk lining. It stands to reason Davy wouldn’t want someone in run-down effects following him around on opening day. A new suit only makes sense. But I can’t help thinking about Agatha, who’d been snared with extra shillings. I wonder if any of the others have stories of expensive gifts or temptations offered in exchange for loyalty or servitude, until at some point Davy decided he’d secured enough good will to turn on them.

I try not to think about it. None of the others were offered an apprenticeship.

When I dress myself in the suit, I barely recognize my reflection in the mirror. I look like a proper gentleman like this save for the workman’s boots that peek out from under my pressed trousers.

I’m also hotter than a horseshoe on the forge. What is the _purpose_ of all these buggering layers in the middle of August?

Tugging at my collar, I exit the tent and meander up the walk to where Davy has stationed himself, on the platform I built for him outside Baz’s tent. The gates are open now, and people dressed in their finery—women in plumed hats with lacy parasols, men with doorknockers and canes—have been trickling out into the main path from the Menagerie. I hear some of them giggling about the stuffed beasts on display (“Have you ever seen a more grotesque creature than that chimera!” followed by, “Indeed! The resemblance to Uncle Frederick is positively uncanny, wouldn’t you say?”) and stifle a laugh myself.

Fiona’s already begun her fire breathing performance, which I’ve only ever watched in rehearsal from a distance, and I’m so enthralled, I nearly forget to keep walking. Before my eyes, she transforms from a curmudgeonly old maid with a smoking habit to a lively flame-wielding sorceress. She was right: I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself. She lights the torch in her hand and playfully teases the crowd with it, inviting them to touch it before pulling it away with an admonishing grin. Once she has everyone’s attention, she takes a swig of something from her tin cup, and _FOOM!_ A great cloud of flame billows out over the cowering crowd inciting a hubbub of laughs and screams and thunderous applause.

A tried and true fire-breather, Penny said. Fiona’s magnificent. 

The din is interrupted when Davy’s voice peals over the crowd. I push through to get closer.

“Thank you, Fiona! Is she not a modern marvel with a flame?” he shouts to the audience, and they reward him with more applause and cheers.

“Welcome, one and all, to Mage’s Travelling Carnival of Curiosities! And, speaking of modern marvels,” he says ominously, “I know what you are all here to see! What lies beyond this tent wall will do more than shock and astound you. It shall rend the very fabric of reality as you come face-to-face with a creature of myth and legend. The very Prince of Atlantis himself!”

I feel like someone’s blown out a candle in my chest. Around me, the crowd produces a variety of reactions, from excited murmuring to skeptical looks. For my part, I think my heart is about to stop beating under my three layers of clothing.

“Are you ready to behold this wonder of the deep? Only at Davy Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities will you witness this miracle of God’s own creation: a living... breathing... merman!” bellows Davy, and the audience, ravenous for more, squeals with delight.

“I am about to open the tent. As our flyers have advertised, it is an additional five shillings per person to visit the exhibit, which you may deliver upon entry at this table here,” he says casually, gesturing to the small table beside the tent flap. “And now, without further ado, may I introduce to you The Prince of Atlantis!”

I push forward to get to the front, but the crowd grows denser as it queues up to pay the entrance fee. Davy pulls back both tent flaps, and when he takes his seat at the admission table, I wave to catch his eye.

“Simon!” he calls out, opening his money box and taking the first coins. The patrons part to let me through once they realise he’s talking to me. “Do venture inside and assist the patrons in filling the space, will you?” he says as I stumble out of the throng.

Already a bit winded from the heat and the effort of pushing my way through the gentry, I enter alongside a small group of men and ladies.

They immediately fall silent at the sight of Baz in the tank.

He sits facing away, his shoulder against the wall. His dark hair and the fronds of his tail waft gently in the water, which has taken on an alarmingly deeper green hue. I’d changed his water the other day; it may as well have never been touched.

“Ladies, if you please,” I say to two women stalled on their way to the bench, “move further in to make room for other patrons.”

In pairs and clusters, the tent slowly fills with spectators gawking in silence because they don’t quite believe their eyes. Baz doesn’t so much as flinch. Just slouches against the glass with his back turned to the audience.

“I say,” the man next to me mutters, “that thing is made of wax.”

“You know, I had the same thought,” says the lady beside him. “It would certainly make more sense. One of those sculpts from Tussaud’s in London would look more realistic.”

Whispers and murmurs spread among the crowd, devolving into chittering and giggles. My lungs begin to constrict.

Not a moment later, a man in front reaches over the rope to bang on the glass.

“Ho there! Are you dead?” he laughs.

I rush forward to intercept him, but the room is packed. I call out, “Sir, you really shouldn’t—”

The sharp fin on Baz’s back flares out. A hundred people recoil and gasp in unison.

I finally make it to the front of the room and step behind the cord. “If all visitors would kindly refrain from knockin’ on the glass,” I shout, feeling itchy and hot all over and like a downright clown in this posh get-up.

Behind me, I hear the burble of water. Before me, a sea of faces blanch, the ladies raising their handkerchiefs to their mouths and men removing their hats.

I turn around.

Baz’s tail is pulled in, and though he’s not facing the crowd, he’s looking right at me. Glaring.

Like he’s never seen a sight in his life more disappointing than my face.

“My God,” breathes a tearful lady in the front, her hand at her throat. “He’s _real_.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, your eyes do not deceive you,” Davy’s voice calls out grandly from the tent entrance. The crowd parts for him as he saunters to the front with his chest puffed out. “He is flesh and blood—the rarest beast in the ocean—and my cunning alone lured him to the shore so you could see him for yourself! Is he not stupendous?”

This time, Davy knocks on the iron with his cane. “Look alive, merman. Your public awaits.”

Instinctively, I reach out and hold Davy’s wrist. “Davy. I wouldn’t do that.”

His eyes flash at me. Then, just as quickly, a wide mustachioed grin spreads across his face. “Mr. Snow here is our resident merman keeper!” he announces, and my mouth falls open at the lie. “Thank you for your sound expertise, my good man.”

He leans in close and brings his lips to my ear. “You will exit this tent immediately and wait for me outside.”

Pulling himself away, he claps me brightly on the shoulder. “Mr. Snow will be available outside the tent to answer your questions. Do take a bow, Mr. Snow.”

Behind his toothsome smile is an unsettling expression I’ve never seen on Davy’s face before; rather than stare at it, I make a short bow, and scattered applause ensues. When I look back over my shoulder at Baz, he’s back to staring at the wall, his face lost behind a swirl of black hair.

Fifteen minutes takes a bloody eternity. I’m standing outside the tent surrounded by a new group of visitors patiently waiting for the next Prince of Atlantis showing when the tent flap reopens and the previous group begins to filter out. I can see ladies dabbing their eyes with their handkerchiefs getting stopped by those who have yet to see. “Is it worth the extra price of admission?” a woman asks a sniffling gentlelady on her way out.

“My dear,” she says breathlessly, touching the other woman’s arm. “It is the most astonishing creature I’ve ever seen.”

“Simon,” comes Davy’s voice from behind, startling me.

“Yes, Davy. Sorry to have interrupted you earlier.”

He pauses to gaze impassively at me before he decides on a better expression and grins amiably. “No harm done, my boy,” he reassures me. “It’s your first day of Carnival. It stands to reason a novice such as yourself would forget the code.”

“The code? But that’s reserved for the performers.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I’m painfully aware of my error.

“You are as yet merely an apprentice,” he reminds me. “There can only be one showman on the stage. You understand, don’t you?”

I nod. “Yes. My apologies,” I say, measuring my tone. “Do you think, if I might be bold, sir, that the merman would fare better before the public without… y’ know…”—I lower my voice—“the knockin’?”

Davy’s eyes narrow. Paired with the grin on the lower half of his face, the effect is chilling, even in the August heat. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Thank you,” I say, letting out a long breath.

With that, he summons Fiona and sets his top hat on his head in preparation for the next rousing speech for the incoming crowd. But before he mounts the platform, he turns back to me and says, “I think it may be educational for you, Simon, if you join Shepard at the front gate. Learn the business of ticketing while you’re there and relieve him once you do. You can tell him I need my Tattooed Australian back at his exhibit.”

I’m smart enough to know Davy doesn’t need me at the ticket counter. But I’m also dumb enough to have shown a card I didn’t realize I had until Davy was holding it.

I defended Baz in front of one hundred onlookers. And Davy saw it as a threat. I’ll be lucky if he lets me near the merman tent during the daylight hours ever again.

And after the look Baz gave me in there, I’ll be lucky if Baz ever tolerates another visit from me at night.

___

The first days of the carnival’s grand reopening were a roaring success. It began as a trickle, but once word spread throughout Blackpool about the merman in captivity at Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, it was mere days before the gates were flooded with spectators seeking admission for the Prince of Atlantis exhibition. The queues poured out into the road and beyond.

Seems like Davy’s always by the Merman tent now, whether or not the carnival is open. When he’s not on the platform delivering his rousing speech or inside with Baz, he’s sitting outside counting his earnings (Baz’s earnings) which makes it impossible to sneak in for a visit. Each day, Davy assigns me a new ‘attraction’ to shadow. I didn’t realize how intricately the scheduling enabled everyone to contribute to the running of this place. The most I’ve seen of Baz in four days has been a blurry gray-blue haze over the heads of a hundred middle and upper class gents and ladies.

I miss him. I miss him so much, I've taken to dreaming about him again to make up for the hours I spend away, except in my dreams, I'm the one cased in glass and iron with Baz just beyond my reach. I wish to God I’d listened to him and set him free when I'd had the chance, if not for his wellbeing, then to spare him the awful humiliation of being gawked at by strangers who can’t see his soul beyond the scales and fins. Davy was right when he said Baz wasn’t like anything else at the carnival. The rest of the company might not be free, but at least they’re not caged.

Sundays, the carnival is closed to the public, which means I’d have to wait another two days to sneak in to see Baz.

I can’t wait that long.

After staring at my dinner and not eating it, I sneak behind the tent row while Davy sits out front counting out shillings. When I arrive at the backside of Baz’s tent, the canvas wall is pitched too securely for me to lift it up very far, but I can get it high enough to crawl in on my belly if I try. I stick my head in first, relieved to see the tank only a few feet away, then pull myself in, smearing the entire front side of my nice clothes in dirt.

As quietly as I can, I creep to the platform’s edge, and ducking down, slide my hand up and place it on the glass. After our last exchange, I’m not foolish enough to think he’ll meet my hand with his, but I wait for a sign—a sound—to show he can see me.

There’s nothing. Maybe he’s too far away. Crouching, I move around the side, check if anyone’s watching, then peer over the platform’s edge so I can get a better look in the water.

That’s when I find him.

He’s lying on the floor of the tank, his body curled in on itself and his eyes closed. I blink, hoping it might be a trick of the glass, but his skin has some sort of film on it—it floats around him in a smoky haze. When my eyes pass over his body, I smother my mouth with my hand so the horrified gasp doesn’t give away my presence. Patches of black have appeared on his tail where scales used to be. They’re scattered across the bottom of the tank around him like discarded gems.

Holding my breath, I tap gently on the glass. My entire body unclenches when he opens his eyes, sees me, and smiles.

I place a finger over my mouth, urging him to stay quiet, then point to the iron rungs. He nods, so I pull off my boots and climb up in my stockinged feet as Baz floats slowly up to meet me.

His face breaks the surface and confirms all my fears. He looks so ill, memories of Ebb’s decline flash before my eyes.

I’m hidden from view up here behind the banner Davy and I put up a month ago, but I don’t dare speak. As I reach for him through the bars, Baz’s fingers rise weakly out of the water; when they touch mine, they feel slick as if he’d been dipped in grease.

Suddenly, I hear the clink of the money box closing, then the shuffle of shoes. Davy’s packing it in for the night. For a moment the lamp light glows brightly under the tent flap, then gradually fades until Baz and I are left alone in the moonlight.

“God, look at you,” I rasp, turning back to gaze down at him. “How can I say how sorry I am? I were so afraid to believe you...“

“I know. Humans are unrepentantly muleheaded,” he murmurs, grinning weakly. “You’re an evolved type.”

“I’m a selfish prick is what I am.” The tears well up in my eyes. “A murderer’s apprentice, just like you said.”

“Hush,” he says, and his once melodious voice sounds thin. “I’m so glad to see you, I can’t bring myself to hate you. I thought... you’d left me.”

“I could never,” I whisper. “Davy’s kept me away, an’ even then… I thought you didn’t want me. You’d be right if you didn’t. Watching all them strangers tease an’ gawk at you, knowing I were lettin’ it happen. I couldn’t stand it. I been a yellow-bellied meater who don’t deserve you.”

He shakes his head at me like I’m daft. “I always want you. Even when you’re being a yellow-bellied meater, whatever that means,” he says. “Haven’t you worked that out yet?”

I squeeze his hand. “Well, I’m gonna get you back home if it kills me, you hear?”

“Simon.”

“What?” I ask.

Baz avoids my eyes. “I don’t know if… I don’t think I have much longer…”

“Cor, don’t talk like that,” I plead, reaching my other hand down through the lattice to close over Baz’s. “I just need to get through to Davy. If I can get him to see right, the others’ll be free to help.”

He sighs heavily and shakes his head. “I don’t have any delusions about what’s going to happen. What makes you think the man who harpooned my mother would ever willingly let me go?”

“I’ll make him see reason,” I insist. “The man only understands one language, an’ it’s money. If word got out that he’d killed you, the carnival would be done for.”

“And if he _won’t_ see reason?”

“Then I’ll carry you to the sea myself!"

Baz shakes his head. “You know you can’t do that,” he says gravely.

I wipe my nose on my expensive sleeve. “I know I ain’t given you much reason to trust in me these days. But I swear to you, I’ll find a way,” I promise. “For now, just try to rest. I’ll come up with the right words.”

“Simon…”

With his face out of the water, I can see his tears.

“Don’t leave,” he says. “All these nights with Davy haunting the tent like a shark… I don’t want to be alone.”

“Don’t be afeard. I’ve promised to protect you, an’ that’s what I intend to do. I’ll be with you as much as I can,” I say. “You’re gonna wish you’d got rid of me when you had the chance.”

His eyes droop from exhaustion, and through his weak smile, he’s still as striking and lovely as ever.

“Barnacle,” he whispers.

“Go on.” I squeeze his fingers. “I’m right beside you.”

His head dips below the surface, and he lets go of my hand. I watch him drift down and away from me. When he reaches the bottom, his long tail curves up and splays its fins over him like a blanket.

I watch over him all night.

And though I’m not a thinker, all I do is think.

I think of the living paradox of Tyrranos Basilias, this impossibly strong yet fragile creature who followed the currents into a trap that brought him to me. How he gave me a taste of what it's like to be one with the ocean when he made us one with each other. Of all the breaths I might never have taken had he not shown me how.

Of the soul inside him and how God must have poured mine in the same cast to match it.

Like a hammer against ore, I think and I think until the dawn breaks over the horizon.

Then, with the steel I’ve wrought in my heart, I leave Baz’s side to talk to Davy.


	9. When Needs Must

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I swore I’d get Baz home, and that’s what I intend to do. 
> 
> Ebb was right. 
> 
> _Life has ways of showin’ us our backbone._

I’ve stayed awake until the dawn only one other time in my adult life.

When Ebb lay dying. 

Every detail of that endless night is branded into my heart. She wore her nicest nightdress, my gift to her after I’d earned my first month’s wages at the ironworks. Her skin was pale and pulled across the bones of her face, and the typhoid had turned her yellow hair to straw. She’d asked to rest her head on the embroidered pillow her twin brother had given her—it was the fanciest thing she owned and had only ever decorated a corner of her settee before—but she insisted on having it close by toward the end. Said there was little point in keeping lovely things if you weren’t allowed to enjoy them, and she was determined to prove the usefulness of everything around her before she went. 

With Ebb, nothing ever went to waste, not even me.

“Simon? Where’s my ickle goat?” she said weakly, just after midnight.

I’d been keeping watch in the chair across the room. At the sound of my name, I sat on her bed and took her hand. “Not so ickle anymore.”

“There you is, dear,” she murmured. 

“I ain’t never left,” I said, holding my grief firm behind a smiling veneer. “An’ I ain’t never leavin’ neither. All the birds is flown but me.” It was a poor attempt at a joke, but she grinned for my benefit anyway. 

“I’m glad,” she said. “I got my last instructions. An’ they’s for your ears only.”

Her hand let go of mine and moved slowly toward her night table. She made several tries at pulling open the drawer, until I reached over and did it for her.

“Be a good lad an’ take out the envelope there,” Ebb directed. 

It sat at the top of her pile of stationary. Her letter. Once it was in my hand, she tapped it with a finger and said, “That’s for you. Now that I’m fallin’ off your list o’ burdens, you’ll need to find work again, an’ you can use a good word to prove your worth. Take it with you to the next job.”

I looked down at it with a boulder lodged in my throat. 

“Not to worry, Simon. I put in all the best bits,” she said. 

“I know you did,” I whispered. “Thanks for that.”

“Oi, don’t look so scared,” she said, pressing a palm to my knee. “Your life’s gonna start over. It’s meant to, so’s you shouldn’t try to stand in the way. Everyone’s got to shed their skin a few times ‘fore our time’s up, and there ain’t nothin’ to fear in it.”

I shook my head. “Easier said than done, Ebb.”

“Tosh. You done it once already, don’t you remember?”

“I have? When?”

“When I found you. You was a rough, locked up little scrap with a red ball and no words, but I could tell there were a gentle heart beatin’ in that chest o’ yours. Weren’t long before you outgrowed that boy and proved me right,” she whispered. “The world is out to make hard hearts out o’ good people… and I were lucky to find yours ’fore it turned to stone.”

I managed a grin. “Reckon _I’m_ the lucky one,” I say.

“That’s mighty sweet o’ you, Simon. Well, now that you’ll be on your own, I wants you to remember always to stay soft”—she pointed to my chest—“in here. Let yourself feel for your fellow man. Help those what need helpin’. Love those what need lovin’. And when needs must, Simon, you go ‘head and fight. Will you promise me?”

“I ain’t much good at fightin’ no more, thanks to you,” I laughed, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. 

“That ain’t true, Simon Snow,” she argued. “I know you better than anyone, includin’ you. Your heart’s a compass what points north no matter what, and Lord help the man what stands in the way when you’re followin’ it. You’re a right stubborn lad when you needs to be.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“That you shall. Life has ways of showin’ us our backbone. You’ll learn what kind o’ metal you’re made of soon enough.”

Her faith in me felt so misplaced. I found myself helpless against the tears burning at my eyes. “I’d rather not,” I rasped, clutching at her thin hand. “Ebb, what’m I gonna do without you?”

Though the illness had stripped away her strength and radiance, her gaze was as fierce and alive as ever. “I’ll tell you,” she whispered. “You’re gonna get out o’ Great Eccleston an’ make yerself happy. This life ain’t bleedin’ long enough for you to waste it bein’ sad an’ lonely. Now do ye promise, or no?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

She sighed and smiled—a last act of defiance against all her pain. “Why don’t you open that envelope now?”

Something small was rattling around in there. Untucking the flap, I looked inside and found the culprit.

“Ebb,” I choked out. “Your gold cross.”

“It ain’t much, but wear it anyway,” she murmured. “That way no matter where the good Lord takes you... or how long you outlive me... I’ll always be with you.” 

I could bear it no longer. Tears flowed hot and fast from my eyes, and she tugged me into her arms just as she used to when I was her newest charge and the nightmares were too much for my tender years to handle. I lay there like that, with my head on her chest, until the heart inside it slowed, and then stopped.

She went with the sunrise. The warm rays of light that broke over the horizon ought to have comforted me, but they seemed so cold that morning. 

___

It’s the same sky overhead as I traverse the path toward Davy’s tent, gripping the cross in my hand.

When I arrive at his quarters, I can hear the sounds of his morning routine within. Shuffling feet. The splash of water. 

I take a deep breath and knock on the short table outside his door. “Davy, can I speak with you?”

I recite Ebb’s words in my mind.

_Do right, Simon, an’ you’ll never go wrong._

“Certainly,” he calls back. “Do come in.”

I enter the tent, and Davy bares his teeth when he he grins at me. It’s never a particularly nice or natural smile; more like the painted likeness of affability than the real thing. But there’s something extra unsettling about it today. Like it was halfway toward becoming a sneer before his lips froze in place.

“Well, Simon. This is a surprise,” he says, standing at the Cheval mirror in his undershirt and trousers. “Won’t you have a seat?”

“Thank you,” I reply, taking my usual chair at the round table, Davy sitting across from me. I open my mouth to speak but Davy cuts me off.

“Capital opening, wouldn’t you agree?” he asks. “Our first week’s profits are triple what they were a year ago. And word is about to spread far and wide,” he adds, rapping his knuckles on a new stack of flyers, each bearing Davy’s merman illustration, no doubt. I can’t make myself look at them. “Our success made it possible to hire a colour press, you know.”

Even his voice sounds different. Empty. I can’t put my finger on why, but hearing it sends a shiver down my spine.

I swallow hard. “Davy, there’s something very important I’d hoped to talk to you about.”

He reaches for his pipe and tin. “Sounds urgent,” he intones. “I’m listening.”

“Ba— The merman, that is… Well, he’s quite sick, you see.”

“Is he, now?” he says, tapping the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. “All wild creatures dull in captivity, Simon, everyone knows that.”

“No,” I say quickly. “He’s not just dull. I thought it was something passing, but it’s far graver than that.”

Davy tests the pipe, then pulls out a match and lights it. “How grave?”

“He’s dying,” I say, and my voice nearly catches on the word. “I’m certain that the only way to save him… is to put him back.”

He squints at me. “Put him _back_?” 

Then he starts laughing. 

“My dear chap, I think you’ve lost your head,” he chuckles through a plume of smoke. “Decades of my life searching for the beast only to put it back as soon as it gets a cold? You’re very funny.” 

“I’m not tryin’ to be funny, sir. I mean, Davy,” I say, leaning forward in my chair even though the smoke is making my eyes tear. “He says that merfolk—”

“Ah, you’ve _spoken_ to him, have you?” he interrupts, frowning. “When did _that_ start, exactly?” 

Damn it. Of all the things to let slip. “When you left him in my care,” I lie. 

“Interesting. The bloody creature is mute to the entire world, but leave it alone with a hired hand, and suddenly it has a _voice_.”

This time, Davy leans forward, his eyes narrowed. “Let me bring you into a greater understanding of the ways of the world, Simon. Of course it’s going to tell you it’s dying. A desperate, manipulative creature like that would say anything to get back to the sea.”

“I’m right well acquainted with the ways of the world,” I argue, clamping down on my temper. “Baz ain’t like that.”

“ _Baz?_ ” Davy backs away from me, his mustache twitching. “You call it by name like it’s a proper human,” he observes, a mix of disgust and fascination coloring his voice.

This wasn’t meant to go this way. Not by a long chalk. 

“He may not be human,” I say, “but he’s got a soul like one. And he wouldn’t lie. Not to me.”

Davy stares at me as if the point of our entire conversation has suddenly revealed itself. “Good heavens, Simon. Have you formed... an _unnatural_ attachment to that creature?” He doesn’t say it with the shock you might expect from someone just cottoning on to an affair between his employee and his prisoner.

He says it like he knows the answer to his question.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’d imagined us beyond false pretenses,” Davy murmurs. “I think it’s past time you told me the truth.”

My heart drops out of my chest.

It suddenly occurs to me that nothing I’ve said so far has been a surprise to him. That Davy’s been reading from a script since the moment I stepped through the tent flap. My mouth hangs open noiselessly; any words that could help are too far out of reach, and as Davy’s facade drops to reveal a face so sinister it could have escaped from one of my nightmares, my lungs begin to squeeze.

“You must think very highly of yourself, believing you could visit the merman tent without setting off every alarm in my dominion. I’ve been onto you since the very moment you interfered on opening day,” he sneers. “I know you visited him last night. I heard every filthy word.” 

Shame grips me by the throat before I remind myself what he’s doing. 

_A person who thinks o’ hisself as a dog is easier to control. That’s why there’ll always be someone out there callin’ you a mutt ‘stead of a man._

“If you were listening, then you know I ain’t lying to you,” I persist. “If Baz dies, the carnival dies with him. And you won’t earn back whatever you spent on those flyers, that’s for damn sure.” 

Davy stands up with his pipe and leans over the table to leer at me.

“Well, let me relieve your worried mind. The merman is _my_ concern, not yours, and I am not paying you twenty shillings a week to engage in repellant, amorous conversations with my star attraction. You are not the master of this production. _You_ ,” he snarls, pointing a finger in my face, “work for _me_.”

I stand up to look him in the eye. “Yeah? Then maybe I shouldn’t anymore!”

Once more, Davy laughs haughtily in my face. “Oh, no, no, no. That’s not how this works at all,” he jeers. “Go ahead and leave if it feeds your prideful ignorance. But tell me: do you think anyone will hire an asthmatic ironworker after I tell them he’s the sort who falls in love with sea creatures?”

My eyes go wide. The very idea that he’d follow me—thwart any attempt I made to escape this place—makes my blood turn to ice in my veins. This is the answer I’d been searching for all along. The key to the riddle of his power over everyone in the company. 

He holds their secrets hostage.

“Fine. You win,” I whisper, winded and angry and more than a bit desperate as well. “You can trap me in this carnival for the rest o’ my life if that’s your goal. Just let Baz go. I’m appealin’ to your humanity—”

“And I am appealing to yours!” he growls. “You are a human! He is a beast! If you wish to be a freak in my presence, then build yourself a stage and put on a costume!”

“But—”

“I am finished discussing this with you. Return my keys and consider yourself off duty until you’ve learned your damn place,” he snaps. “And if I catch you near the merman tent...” He reaches into his pocket, removes the Derringer, and holds it in the air between us. “It’s two bullets: One for you and one for the creature. Have I made myself clear, Mister Snow?”

I dig into my own pocket and drop the keys onto the table. 

“Yes. _Sir_.”

“Good. Now get out of my sight.”

I leave Davy’s tent like I’ve just run a race, my forehead coated in sweat and my lungs in a vice. But as much as he puffed his poison in my face, I’m not afraid, and I’m not deterred.

This isn’t over. I swore I’d get Baz home, and that’s what I intend to do. 

Ebb was right. 

Life has ways of showin’ us our backbone.

___

While the carnival prepares to open the gates, I march myself to the pier, half-crazed and wheezing, with the entirety of my earned wages burning a hole in my pocket. Whatever else happens today, getting Baz back to the ocean is my only goal, so I ask the first person I see who doesn’t look like a nose-bagger where I can hire a boat.

He looks warily at my determined face and points me toward an older bloke in slops and a sailor hat pulling in a rowboat from the shallows. 

“I need to hire a dinghy. But not for here and not right now,” I call out as I stride across the sand toward him.

The sailor casts me a suspicious glance. “When an’ where, then?”

My thought is, if I set myself a ticking clock, I won’t leave myself room for error or failure. “St. Anne’s Pier. Five in the mornin’, tomorrow.” 

“St. Anne’s Pier?” he gawps. “I’d have to leave in the wee hours just to get the dinghy out there!”

I pull out the sack of shillings and push it into his hands. “Please. This is everything I got. Will it be enough?”

He eyes me skeptically, then opens the sack, shaking it a bit to shift around the contents. “Aye, lad. That’d do,” he confirms, impressed at the amount. 

“Oh,” I add, remembering the most vital detail. “And you can’t tell no one what you see when I meet you there.”

His hand pauses on its way to pocketing my money. “You wouldn’t be dealin’ in anything unsavory, would ya?”

“Nah. You’d be doin’ a good deed, mate.”

He studies my face and for a moment the only sounds are the waves rolling in and my wheezing. Finally, he nods and pats his pocket.

“Five in the morn, St. Anne’s pier, then,” he confirms.

As it stands, one thing is still working in my favor: once the gates open, Davy will be occupied at Baz’s tent, which will give me an opportunity to pursue my alternate plan.

At the appropriate time, I hide myself in the throng and make my way to the Bearded Lady’s tent, my lungs whistling with every breath, pushing past all the spectators and outraging some of the better dressed ones as I do. I enter to find Penny sitting in the center of the roped off display in her hairy get-up. 

As soon as she sees me, she rises to her feet. “Simon?” she says. “Whatever’s the matter? You’re having a proper fit—”

“I need your help,” I croak. “He’s gonna kill him.” 

“ _What?_ ”

I feel a tap on my shoulder. “If you don’t mind, young fellow,” huffs a dandy chap behind me with a top hat and cane, “you are blocking everyone’s view!” 

Penny places her hands on her hips and clears her throat. “Oi! This exhibit is closed for the rest o’ the morning!”

The dandy’s mouth goes slack. “You only just opened! I paid two shillings—“

“Yes, and you can bugger off to see the other attractions with it. Starting now, I’m on a bloody break, now clear off!”

The crowd behind me, very confused and put out, begins filing out of the tent, muttering their displeasure as they go. Penny doesn’t even wait for the last of them to leave before she tears off her beard and pulls me over the cord.

“You look afright,” she whispers, sitting me down by the shoulders in the velvet chair I’d reupholstered for her only a week ago. “What’s this about killing someone? Who’s killing who?”

“Davy,” I say. “He’s gonna kill Baz.”

“Baz? Who the bloody hell—“

“The merman.”

Penny blinks at me. “I can’t believe that. That merman’s too important to him. Davy practically got hisself killed getting him here—”

“No, you don’t understand,” I say, grabbing her hands. “Baz is sick. He can’t survive in that tank nor any other. I tried talking to Davy about it but there’s no convincing him to give Baz up. Soon as I mentioned it, he lost his marbles and pulled out his bloody Derringer.”

“You did _what_?” she squeaks. “You’re a jammy lad indeed if he didn’t shoot you where you stood!”

I force another deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. It means it’s up to me now, and I can’t do it alone.”

“What’s up to you now?” she demands. “Simon, if you’re suggestionizing what I think you is, then you’re out o’ your sodding wits!’”

“I don’t care! If I can’t figure out how to get him back to the ocean, Baz is gonna die! And Penny…”

My face crumples as tears cloud over my vision.

“Penny, I can’t let him die...”

She says nothing at first, that’s how well I’ve stunned her. Just stands there with one hand over her mouth and the other holding her hairpiece. But as soon as the first sob wrenches from my throat, she draws her arms around my shoulders and pulls me close.

“Oh, Simon. I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” she whispers into my hair. “Christ, everything’s startin’ to make sense.”

I lift my head to look up at her. “What do you mean?”

“Never you mind it.” She pulls away, takes my hand and helps me to my feet. “Come on, love. If there’s gonna be a jailbreak, then we need a plan.”

___

  
  


One by one, Penny rounds up the rest of the company before they’ve even had time to strip off their costumes and makeup, commanding everyone to meet at the fire pit while Davy’s still counting shillings at Baz’s tent. 

Meanwhile, I go back to my tent and pull out my box. Two sets of keys go into my pocket: the spare set I forged and the keys to Ebb’s farm.

We meet at the fire pit, as yet unlit. Everyone looks at me with suspicion and resentment at having their bagging time tossed in the bin.

“I know you’re all hacked off ‘bout this emergency meeting,” Penny starts, “but it were important that we get this off before you’re all half-rats on the absinthe and bloody useless. One of our own has been threatened.”

“One of us, threatened?” squeaks Trixie. “But who?”

“Care to fill us in, Simon?” Penny looks knowingly at me and nods.

I step forward.

“His name’s Baz,” I begin, my voice small, “the merman Davy’s kept prisoner here since July.”

“The _merman_? Is he joking?” Dev balks. 

“Shut your sauce-box an’ let him finish, or I’ll sew your bollocks to your arsehole, you great git,” Penny spits. “Go on, Simon.”

Drawing a steadying breath, I glare at Dev and start over. “Like I said, it’s the merman,” I say. “And he’s dying in that tank you put him in.”

I pause to let it sink in. Everyone’s shoulders slouch as their irritation gives way to embarrassment.

“I know you don’t think o’ him as one of us,” I continue. “Maybe after you hear this, you won’t think I’m one o’ you neither. He’s not a man the way we think a man ought to be, on two legs wearing a morning coat ‘n’ trousers. But he’s the realest thing in this place, just like Shep said.”

I curl my fingers around Ebb’s cross. “Cor, if you only knew him as I do. He’s an historian. And an athlete. A poet. A right prick when he wants to be. He follows the currents like sailors chart the stars...” Looking at Agatha, I add, “He’s the sort what saves damsels in distress when they been stranded out at sea.” 

She bows her head.

“Our kind are a poisoned lot. Tricked from birth into thinkin’ it’s every man for hisself and the only way to survive a lifetime gettin’ pissed on is to piss on someone else,” I mutter. “Ours is the kind what puts a person behind a rope for looking different, and pays two shillings to call him ‘freak’ to his face.”

I stare down into the empty fire pit and watch my tears darken the ash around my feet. “His kind believe they’re like waves on the sea,” I say, my voice broken and shaking. “Unique and separate on the surface, but underneath it all, they’re one, connected by the ocean. And that’s where he needs to be”—I point between the tents at the sparkling blue—“Out there! Free! Not witherin’ away alone on the bottom of a glass cage, a world apart from everything he knows.”

Penny’s hand finds its way to my shoulder and squeezes. It strengthens me enough to push out the rest.

“You all know what it’s like to beg. Well, here I am, beggin’. If you’ve any compassion left to give, help me save him,” I say, wiping my tears off with my cap. “He loves me. An’ I love him. An’ I reckon that makes _me_ a freak and an abomination… but believe me when I say this bleedin’ world ain’t worth much if he’s not in it.”

Six gobsmacked faces stare like they’ve never seen the like of me in their lives. I look desperately around the pit for a sign I haven’t condemned Penny and me to a fool’s errand, but no one says a thing.

“Come on you cursed lot,” Penny snaps. “Baz is Simon’s family, which makes ‘im _our_ family. It’s gotta be tonight, ‘cause he ain’t gonna last much longer than that. Now who’s in?”

“I am.”

Shepard steps forward. “I know what freedom’s worth. Ain’t no price on it,” he says folding his decorated arms across his chest. “I’ll help you get him home.” 

My heart leaps. “You will?”

“I will, too,” says Agatha. “I were needed to get him in. You’re gonna need me to get him out.”

“You’ll be requirin’ someone small to keep a lookout as well,” Trixie chimes in. 

“And extra hands to carry ‘im,” adds Niall, glancing at Dev, who looks less sure and slightly pale.

“Hold on a tick. Before we all start feelin’ noble, what about the carnival?” asks Dev. “We gonna just forfeit our jobs?”

I thought it might come to this. Silence falls over the entire company, and I search the group for a single face that isn’t shrouded in uncertainty or downright defeated. Dev has single-handedly taken the wind out of everyone’s sails, including mine. 

I don’t have the faintest idea what to say. Even if I take the fall—convince them to blame me when Davy inevitably comes after them for their lives—Mage’s Travelling Carnival of Curiosities will sink under the weight of Baz’s scandalous disappearance alone. 

Suddenly, Fiona speaks.

“Bugger this carnival,” she spits. “And bugger Davy as well.” 

Everyone turns to look at her, at which point she takes her fag out of her mouth and puts it out in her palm. 

“That mustachioed bastard ain’t got nothin’ over me. Burn this establishment to the bloody ground for all I care,” she declares. “As far as I’m concerned, you can all fly under Fi’s flag.”

“Fiona,” says Penny, “are you tryin’ to say you’d run a _new_ pit show?”

She sniffs. “An’ why not? I been in this industry since most ‘o you were naught but a sparkle in yer mum’s eyes. I learned from the best in the bloody business.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Agatha squeaks. “I love this idea!”

“It’s a rubbish idea,” counters Dev. “Where’re you gonna get the capital to start your own pit show? None of us is worth a farthing!”

“Hang on,” I say, holding up a hand.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, _why_ didn’t I think of this before?

“Is there a reward for turning forgers in to the police?” I ask.

“Of course, there is,” answers Shepard.

“How much?”

“Crikey. It’s got ter be ‘bout three thousand pounds sterling,” Penny adds, looking suspiciously at me over the rim of her spectacles. “Why?”

“Because there are hundreds of forged banknotes in Davy’s safe,”—I pull the spare keyring out of my pocket—“an’ I’ve got the key.” 

Niall’s mouth falls open. “What?!”

“ _Ha!_ ” Shepard barks, slapping his knee. 

“Oh my great giddy aunt,” cries Agatha. “You’re a bloody genius, Simon!”

I turn to Fiona. “Three thousand pounds. Is that enough to start yer own pit show?” I ask.

“It’s enough to start a bloody circus,” she laughs.

“So what’re we standin’ ‘round like a buncha numpties for?” huffs Trixie.

“It’s settled then,” announces Penny, beaming. “Time to save ourselves a merman!”

My heart is so light, it feels like it’s just been pulled out of quicksand. Penny begins delivering the details of her plan in hushed tones, and as my gaze meets Fiona’s, I feel a surge of affection for the fire-breather. I give her my most grateful smile.

With mischief in her eyes, she smiles back and says, “I’ll drive.”


	10. The Great Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davy draws an impatient breath. After a pause, I hear him knock on the ironwork of Baz’s tank with what I can only assume is his Derringer. 
> 
> “Good night, merman,” he mutters. “See you bright and early.”
> 
> Like hell he will.

Penny’s plan is simple. In theory. 

Baz would say it’s an awful lot of ‘doing’ to fill eight hours.

I’ve not slept and my stomach’s an empty hole, but I’m muscling through with a locomotive strapped to my heart. The first trial is getting Davy away from Baz’s tent—just long enough for me to crawl in and hide myself until the villain’s turned in for the night. Penny enthusiastically advised against this particular part of the strategy (“He’ll be sniffin’ for you like a bloodhound in heat!”) but keeping my promise to Baz wasn’t a point I was willing to negotiate. 

If a few days’ isolation is all it took to bring Baz to death’s door, I’m not risking more hours away from him than I need.

Penny drags me to her tent as soon as we all disperse from the fire pit. “Hold this,” she says, passing me her beard, which I take gingerly between two fingers. She digs under her cot and produces a sewing box full of brightly colored thread, shears, pin-cushions and needles. Her hand dives into the spools and emerges with some sort of sharp, fiendish-looking fish hook thing. 

“What’re you doing?” I ask. 

“This.” 

She holds out her arm, stabs the hook into the sleeve and drags it through the fabric, tearing a gaping hole right into the poofy satin.

“Penny!” I gasp. “Your costume!”

“An who’m I dressin’ up for after tonight? Queen Vicky?” she mutters, yanking the hook out of her shredded garment. 

Penny gets a head start, striding up the path toward the merman tent while I sneak behind the tent row. The last straggling visitors are meandering back toward the Menagerie—a trio of repeat patrons—and I nearly drop my cover to rage at them when I hear them chitter about how the Prince of Atlantis exhibit has lost its appeal.

“Sir, I need a word,” comes Penny’s voice around the corner from where I’m hidden. 

“I’m at your service,” says Davy, all politeness. “What’s the matter?”

“A bloody travesty is the matter! Snagged me sleeve on me own ring, an’ now look at it! I’m gonna need ter replace the satin, ‘cause there ain’t no fixin’ it,” she complains. “What am I supposed ter do with this mangled thing?”

I poke my head around to look. Penny’s back is to me, her arm dangling in the air right in front of Davy’s nose. She lifts the shredded cloth, blocking me from view. 

“I’m, er, not well versed in costuming,” he says, backing away from her arm. “Can’t you just patch the sleeve?”

“An’ make meself look a rag doll a week into the new season? Heaven forbid it!”

While Penny’s got his attention, I dash behind Baz’s tent and crawl in under the canvas just as I did the night before. She’s resorted to pleading for a back-up costume in addition to fabric for her sleeve when I slink behind the tank and peek my head over the platform to look for Baz. 

He’s still curled on the tank floor, his hand pressed to the glass right where I'd left it. He brightens when he sees me, but his breathing is laboured, his chest heaving the way mine does whenever I’m having one of my fits. The sight of Baz steeped in green water struggling to breathe terrifies me more than anything I’ve ever seen. 

“Yes, Penelope, I’m sure an investment in new satin will be worthwhile,” says Davy. “As to a second frock, we’ll discuss it tomorrow.” 

“Shall I show you which—”

“ _Good night_ , Penelope.” 

Beyond Baz’s panicked expression, a familiar lime green suit appears in the tent flap, and I nearly smack my jaw against the platform trying to duck out of sight.

The time Penny bought me has run out.

Davy Mage's steps are slow and shuffling. I make myself invisible, lying flush against the floor behind the tank while his feet approach.

“Well now. All this time, and I never knew you had a name. Baz, is it?” he drawls. “Look at me, sea scum, or the next time I see your beloved Simon Snow, I’ll fire a bullet into that soft heart of his.”

Above me, I hear the quiet burble of water as Baz obeys.

Davy chuckles, the filthy muck snipe. “He came to beg me for your life today, as I’m sure you’re aware,” he remarks. “How long did it take, I wonder, for you to snare him? To convince him you were anything other than a ferocious sea-bound incubus? A week? A fortnight? A day? That poor, delusional sod. He even told me you had a soul.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and wish my ears could do the same. If the risks didn't involve dying before I had a chance to get Baz out, I’d fly at him with both hands and beat the lime green off his suit. 

Davy keeps talking, his voice dripping tar. “Did you think you could win your freedom by manipulating that hapless idiot? That I’d dash the future of this production over a perverse, romantic attachment?” he sneers. “You think far too highly of yourself if you believe for a moment that your absence would threaten my enterprise.”

His feet shuffle closer. “Die in this tank for all I care,” he hisses. “I’ll have another of you in there soon enough. I’ll hunt down every last one of you—harpoon, stuff, or cage your entire species for five shillings a ticket until I stop breathing—and I intend to breathe for a long, long time. How does that sound, you pernicious snake?”

“Sir?” It’s Shepard’s voice now. 

“What now?” answers Davy testily.

“Well, I got a loose sole on this here shoe. Mind if I borrow your hammer?” he asks. “Storage shed’s locked.”

“And where is Simon? Can’t you use his?”

“Simon went down to the pier a few hours ago sayin’ he needed a long walk and a ‘flash o’ lightning.’ Got struck a few too many times, if you catch my drift.”

“Do you mean to tell me Simon Snow is out there drunkenly meandering around the promenade?” asks Davy, his voice lowering in suspicion.

“Oh, no, he’s back, all right,” says Shep lightly. “But he’s tanked in his tent. I went in to ask for the hammer and he was singing “Down Among the Dead Men” in his sleep.”

I’m just now realising the intangible benefits of having a company of seasoned performers as friends.

Davy draws an impatient breath. After a pause, I hear him knock on the ironwork of Baz’s tank with what I can only assume is his Derringer. 

“Good night, merman,” he mutters. “See you bright and early.”

Like hell he will.

As soon as Davy follows Shep out and the lamplight gives way to the sunset, I spring up to find Baz clinging to the side of the tank looking for me, his face twisted in anguish. I want to race up the rungs and dive into the water to comfort him, but there’s no time.

Instead, I press my hand against the tank wall. And then my lips. He kisses me through the glass.

I pull away and mouth the words: “You’re going home.”

Baz nods and mouths: “I love you.”

___

  
  


I stay with Baz in the dark until I hear a scratch at the canvas and a whisper on the other side: Penny. “Jack the Ripper’s gone a-kipper!” 

I’ve no idea what she means. “What the hell‘re you hissin’ ‘bout?” I whisper back.

“Means Davy’s in his quarters! Come on, we gotta go!”

Baz watches fearfully as I roll back under the tent wall, so I give him my most encouraging smile despite being so tangled up in worry that my insides ache. Once I’m out, Penny and I sneak behind the row toward the storage shed like a pair of thieves. Across the path, I catch Dev, Niall, Shepard, and Fiona creeping off to their positions as well; Fiona to the horses’ stall and the boys to the storage shed.

Perhaps knowing the carnival is done for after tonight is to blame, but it seems no one’s bothered changing out of costumes after the gates closed. Seeing everyone skulk about in bright adornments, fishnets, and animal prints adds a bizarre theatrical element to our escapade that I didn’t plan for. (For my part, I haven’t changed out of the bottom layers of my suit since I put the damn thing on.) 

“Why’s everyone still dressed?” I ask Penny.

She rolls her eyes at me. “I told you Davy’d be sniffin’ for you like a bloodhound, didn’t I? We had to distract ‘im all night so’s he wouldn’t go to yer quarters and realise you was with Baz. Even Agatha told ‘im a porkie about twistin’ an ankle,” she huffs. “Weren’t no time to change.”

Crikey. “I’ve never been so grateful for your dishonesty, Penny, an’ that’s the truth.”

We arrive at the storage shed and make ourselves as small as possible behind it alongside Dev, Niall, and Shepard. Ten yards away, Trixie has also taken up a cramped position under the admission table by Davy’s tent. His light is out already, but she’s waiting for the hallmark sign that Davy is truly asleep—his thunderous snore—before she gives the all-clear. (With all that pipe smoke he breathes, it’s a wonder the paint hasn’t peeled from the sound.) 

“Bloody hell, what’s takin’ ‘im so long?” whines Dev, still wearing the top half of the twins’ costume. “I _knew_ we shoulda dropped some spirits in his mash!”

“Oh, so it’s _my_ fault Davy’s a night owl?” Niall snaps, crouched in his four-legged trousers. 

Penny thumps them both on the head. “Stop pissin’ around,” she hisses. “If he hears you, it won’t make a bloody difference, ‘cause he’ll hang us all!”

She’s right. Noise is a threat to our entire operation. We have the benefit of the sea nearby, its rolling waves masking any small noises we make, but everything that needs to happen before we leave for St. Anne’s Pier could wake the dead if we botch it. 

Suddenly, Trixie’s tiny thumb pokes out from under the table.

“It’s the all-clear!” I whisper. “Go!” 

Penny dashes off to Agatha’s tent while the rest of us tiptoe to the washbasin. It's how they brought Baz over, so we're gonna need it to bring him back. With two water pumps on the grounds—one at the basin and the other by Baz’s tank—there’s no point filling it here, so the plan is to carry it to the wagon first, load it into the bed, then ride it to the other pump. 

Of the four of us, I’m the one who’s never lifted it, but one look at Dev, Niall, and Shepard’s anxious faces tells me this is going to be harder than it looks. Together, we squat around it, wedge our fingertips under it and pull up.

Of course, it weighs no less than a goddamn ton. 

All of us nearly throw out our backs hoisting it onto our shoulders, but no one makes so much as a whimper. Gritting our teeth, we transport it to the wagon as quickly and quietly as four men in wholly inappropriate clothing can manage without breaking our necks.

Meanwhile, Fiona brings the mare around, every jangle of the halter and stirrups setting my teeth on edge. Fiona seems unconcerned; in the face of our collective tension, she hitches the horse with the easy manner of someone practiced in midnight escapes, a fag hanging casually from her lips. Once the horse is hitched, we pile in without a word exchanged and ride off. We can talk when we get to the water pump.

The ride is slow and careful for the sake of keeping quiet, which is bloody unbearable. As she steers, Fiona glances over the spring seat and catches my eye. To my momentary shock, she dips a hand into the cleavage of her dress and miraculously produces a pocket watch. Silently, she shows me its face: two in the morning. Since Trixie's all-clear, roughly an hour and a half has passed.

It means we've got little more than two hours left to finish the deed.

We arrive to find Penny and Agatha already filling the pails with well water. “Is this it? Four stinkin’ pails?” Shep asks. 

“Apparently that’s all Mage’s bloody Carnival of Curiosities can afford,” huffs Penny, hauling a full one toward the wagon.

“It’s fine! We just need to form a chain,” I call out as softly as I can.

“What're you even talkin' 'bout?” Niall calls back. 

“We’d do it at the ironworks,” I reply. “Everyone, queue up! Penny, stay at the well an’ fill the buckets. Then pass ‘em up the line ‘til they reach me and I dump ‘em into the basin. Shep, you run the empty pails back to Penny!”

“Righto, guvna!” he salutes, the daft Yankee, then grabs the empty pails with both hands.

It takes an age, but we eventually fill the basin, frantically passing buckets like we’re putting out a fire. As soon as it looks like there’s enough water in there to cover a merman, I steal a sack’s worth of salt from the stash Davy keeps for Baz’s tank, and unceremoniously dump it in.

That’s when I see it. The first flash. 

It’s followed by a rumble. Over the tents, the flags start flapping in the wind.

“Oh, fecking hell,” mutters Fiona looking up at the sky.

Shepard immediately stands at attention. “Anyone else plan for a thunderstorm? ‘Cause I sure as hell didn’t,” he says.

Agatha wrings her hands. “Oh Lord, Davy’s gonna wake up,” she whimpers. “He’s gonna wake up an’ batty-fang us all or shoot us dead—”

“Shut yer gob, Agatha! We can’t stop now,” snaps Penny. 

“Penny’s right," I say. "Come on, lads, let’s finish it!”

As soon as we move the wagon, the wheels groan under the weight and water splashes out of the basin, spraying Fiona in the back. “This were a damn sight easier if we had a fecking automobile,” she hisses. Meanwhile, Penny races ahead to the merman tent with her costume shears in hand and starts to cut a gap in the tent wall behind Baz’s tank. Shepard joins her and takes over when it’s clear she can’t reach to cut a hole tall enough.

It must be nearly three in the morning when we finally get the wagon into position and file in through the hole, leaving Fiona outside to keep watch and man the wagon. I creep in last and run for the lamp; with thunderclouds hiding the moon, it's too dark inside the tent to see otherwise.

The moment I light the lamp, everything—including the storm—seems to fall silent in Baz’s presence.

“Oh, mercy,” gasps Penny, clasping her hands over her heart.

Baz lies motionless on the floor of the tank. He’s swooned. I don’t waste a single second—I tear up the rungs fully clothed and unlock the hatch with my spare keys. “I need help!” I whisper-shout. “I’ll bring him up, but I need two sets o’ hands to get ‘im out!” 

Agatha and Shepard climb up after me to stand on the grill. Then, I take a deep breath and slide off the iron lattice into the water.

It's a miracle I took to aquatics so well, because the tank seems especially bottomless tonight. The water is green and murky with algae, burning my eyes as I swim down. My clothes drag at my limbs like shackles.

When I finally reach Baz, I touch his face and he turns weakly to look at me. I nearly forget where I am at the sight of him.

He smiles, relieved. Hopeful. It hits me in the gut like a shot of absinthe.

Even when he’s frail and withering, he makes me feel courageous.

I point skyward, and he nods. Then I grip his wrist, pull him up so I can get an arm around his waist, and push off the floor. With his head against my shoulder and hands gripping my back, I kick to the top where Agatha and Shepard are waiting for us.

We burst through the surface. 

“I can’t reach you!” Shepard exclaims, crouching down with his arm out. “Can ya lift him?”

There are four feet between the lattice and the water’s surface, and Baz is a dead weight in my arms. He’d always helped me out of the tank when I was the one leaving it, his powerful tail treading water effortlessly below him. Not only are our roles reversed now, but treading water’s my weakest skill, and he won’t be able to do much to help close the distance. 

“I—I can’t,” I grunt, feeling far less confident than I’d felt a moment ago. 

“What if we get a rope?” offers Shep.

My grip is slipping. “I don’t want to drop him—”

Suddenly, Agatha claps her hands. “I’ve got it!”

She sits down with her back toward the ledge. Hooks both feet under the iron bars.

Then, as if her spine were made of bloody taffy, she leans backward and hangs upside-down over the water with her arms outstretched. “A little trick I learnt at the burlesque show,” she says through her inverted smile. “Use me as a ladder!”

“Agatha, you bloody marvel,” I say through clenched teeth. “Baz, think you can reach an’ grab her arms?”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “I—I think I could.”

Outside I hear another rumble of thunder. Louder this time. 

I gently turn Baz around and, treading water with my legs, use the rest of my strength to raise him high enough for Agatha to catch him above his elbows. Baz’s weight makes me sink under the water, but as I push him from below, Shep helps Agatha pull him up until all three of them topple over onto the lattice. 

Gripping him under the arms, Shep hoists Baz further out, lays his dripping head in Agatha’s lap, then clambers back to help me out of the tank. 

Baz gazes at her through hooded eyes. “I remember you,” he whispers. 

“Hullo, angel,” she whispers back through trembling lips. “I hope you get a lovely party when you get home.”

“We ain’t there yet,” I pant, shaking water out of my hair and willfully ignoring my own exhaustion. “Dev, Niall, and Penny—you ready?”

“Ready as we’re gonna be,” Penny calls up to us.

The next part is dodgy. There’s a ten foot drop from the roof of the cage to the ground. Dev and Niall are confident they can catch him if we lower him over the cage wall, but Baz is slippery—coated in that greasy film. I hook one of Baz’s arms around my shoulder as Shepard takes the other, and kneeling on the grate, we let him down. To bridge the gap between us, Agatha does her upside down trick again, easing him into Dev and Niall’s waiting arms while Penny keeps his tail off the floor. 

Baz glances back up at me as he descends, and I feel his anxiety as if it were my own. But so far, so good, I tell myself. If we can get him into the basin, then it’s just up to Fiona and me to ride Baz to freedom. We're almost there.

“All right, lads! Back slang it to the wagon!” orders Penny once Baz is safely in their arms. Shepard, Agatha and I take turns climbing down off the iron cage and dashing out the hole behind the rest of the group.

The rain’s coming down in sheets now, the water building in large puddles around the grounds, and for a harrowing moment I wonder if it’s a sign our great escape is doomed. 

But Baz feels otherwise, I think. He lifts his face to the heavens and smiles in a way I haven’t seen in weeks. I dash around the side and climb up into the wagon to receive him.

“Bet yer glad this holiday’s over, right, mate?” grunts Dev as they carefully carry Baz over to the wagon.

“Indeed,” Baz rasps, grinning. “There’ll be no leaving the Irish Sea after this.”

“We won’t tell no one,” laughs Niall. 

What a sight we make, a cluster of desperate carnies struggling not to drop a slippery merman in the middle of a thunderstorm. Witchett to the skin, it takes all five of us to lift him into the wagon and lay him down in the basin. His tail fins stick out, but we’ve left the bonnet open so the rain pours down on him. It washes away some of the slick that’s coating his body. 

Wearing shoes seems pointless now that they’re waterlogged and squelching, so I take them off and step into the basin, where Penny helps Baz sit up a bit to make room for me. I slide in behind him, and she settles him in my arms. 

Everything goes quiet except the rain. Baz turns his head to gaze at me, and as his fingers rise up to touch my cheek, I think about how my arms have never held anything so precious.

“All right there, darling?” I say.

Baz nods, a tired smile on his lips. “I am now.” I kiss his forehead. And then his mouth. I don’t care that he’s a merman, and I’m a human, and God and everyone can see us.

“Erm. Baz…?”

We break apart and look up to find the entire company save Trixie standing soberly around the basin.

Penny bows her head. “I speak on behalf of the whole crew when I says we’re so sorry. For everythin’,” she murmurs. “You ought never to’ve been brought here, an that’s the truth.”

“And for your mum,” Agatha adds, sniffling. “Cor, I wish we could take it all back.”

“It’s all right,” Baz says softly. “You didn’t bring me here. The currents did.”

Everyone exchanges confused glances, except me. I hold him closer, feeling every bit like the whole ocean is in my arms.

“Will we ever see you again, Simon?” asks Shepard. 

I don’t know how to answer him. Ebb said I’d shed my skin, and I thought that meant leaving her behind. It took a month in Blackpool to understand it means leaving _everything_ behind.

I shrug. “Prob’ly not, I’m afeart. I reckon I were never cut out for carnival life to begin with.” I let my eyes take in every sad, dripping face around me. “But I’m so grateful to you all,” I add. “You really are the ‘rarest company this side o’ the Thames.’ And I’m the better for knowin’ you.”

Lightning flashes overhead, the thunder sending vibrations through the wood of the wagon. The rain’s coming down dree now. The wind sprays it into our faces.

“Time to go, lads,” calls Fiona over her shoulder.

Everyone but Fiona, Penny and me steps off of the wagon. Penny leans over the spring seat toward Fi. “Remember: when you get to the pier, back the wagon into the water far as you can,” she tells her. “You’ll have an easier time getting Baz into the shallows that way. Simon, are you sure you’re able to manage without more hands?”

“It’s a risk takin’ Fiona, as it is,” I reply. “Reckon if you’re not here when Davy wakes, he’s gonna cotton on about what we done faster than he should, and you’ll need time to turn ‘im in.”

“What do we say to 'im when he wakes?” asks Dev. 

“Tell ‘im I threatened to burn the bloody place down. It wouldn’t exactly be a lie.” I turn to Shepard. “Oi, Shep...”

“Yeah?” 

I almost don’t notice it at first. I blink the rain out of my eyes, look again, and gasp. “Your tattoos!”

The thorns among Shepard’s ink have washed off, but the rest aren’t so much as smeared. Davy must have made him embellish what he’d already had all over his arms—improving the truth, just like Shep said. 

Well, I’ll be damned. They were real after all.

He looks quizzically at me. “It’s nothing,” I say. “Nevermind. Here…” I dig my copied keys out and toss them at him. He catches them in mid-air. “The small one’s for the safe. If things go pear-shaped, make sure everyone grabs a stack o’ those banknotes. Use ‘em to buy yerselves a proper flat in London, mate.” 

He laughs. “Will do, brother.”

“Penny…” I reach out for her hand, and she takes it. “You’re an upright lady. A real friend,” I tell her. “Look after this gormless lot, all right?”

“Will do, Simon. Ain’t another soul in this world like yours,” she sniffles through her tears. “I’ll miss you.”

She steps down, closes the wagon bed, and thumps the sideboards to let Fiona know we’re good to go. 

The dawn feels closer than I’d like. I take one last look at Mage’s Traveling Carnival of Curiosities through the rain and feel the heart under my cross squeeze painfully. Everyone is waving and crying when the wagon lurches forward headed ponderously out the back gate toward St. Anne’s Pier. I don’t have time to wonder if I’ll ever see their faces again.

Baz is as good as home.

___

The ride to the pier isn’t what I’d call smooth. Fiona’s got us moving at a decently fast clip given what the horse is towing. My back knocks painfully against the basin and water keeps splashing out, but I’ve got Baz in my arms, so I don’t much care. Thank God it’s raining because we’d run out of water to keep him wet otherwise. He’s been out of the tank for an hour and I don’t know how much longer he can manage.

As we bump and jostle along, I hold him close. I can’t think of anything to say to him, even though I’m overfull with confessions unsaid and aching to hear his voice again before he‘s gone. He must sense my despair because he turns his head to look longingly at me through the rain. 

One more reason to be grateful for the downpour: he can’t see the tears building in the corners of my eyes.

“Tell me a story, Snow,” he murmurs.

“Which one?” I ask.

“The one about the handsome day labourer... who falls in love with the captive merman,” he replies, his breathing shallow. “I want to know... how it ends.”

I sigh and rest my cheek against his hair. “Well, let’s see now. There were some bickering. Quite a bit o’ plotting. But the day labourer freed the merman with the help of a stubborn group o’ barmpots in the middle o’ the night.”

He chuckles. “Did they now?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “Loaded ‘im up in a wagon, they did. Then a brassy fire-breather rode 'em out to the furthest shore they could find. Somewhere the evil lime-green monster couldn’t stop the handsome day labourer from returnin' the merman to the sea.”

Baz finds my hand around his waist and covers it with his. Looks sleepily into my eyes. “And... then what?”

“Then… well...”—I swallow hard—“turns out the merman were magic after all. He cast a spell on his beloved so he could follow him into the ocean.” I look away so Baz can’t see the grief fighting its way onto my face. “And… and they lived happily ever after.”

“I like that ending,” he whispers. 

“Me too,” I whisper back.

“Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“If there were a way... to follow me to the depths... would you?” he murmurs, his words slurred with exhaustion.

Would I follow him, he asks. As if I hadn’t spent every night apart from Baz fantasizing about a mythical life following the currents right beside him.

“I would. In a bloody heartbeat,” I confess, smiling. “I’d let you steal me from the shore just like the merfolk in the legends do.”

Baz’s eyes struggle to stay open.

“I’ve no spells,” he mumbles. 

“I know,” I say. 

“But it chose you.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“The sea,” he goes on, his voice thready. “The sea… chose _you_...”

His head tips forward, and I catch it. 

He’s fading. Delirious. 

“You’re spent, Baz. You need to rest.”

“Need… to tell you…” 

Baz's eyes close, and his voice disappears. My heart seizes in my chest at the sight, but when I press a finger to his wrist, I feel his pulse, thin but defiant. He’s sleeping. Alive.

Careful not to disturb him, I reach behind my head with one hand and unhook Ebb’s necklace. Then I bring it around Baz’s neck and redo the clasp. 

The cross rests gently over his heart, gold sparkling against his silver skin. 

I breathe Ebb’s words into his ear, though I’m sure he can’t hear me: “So you’ll know that, no matter where the currents take you... or how long you outlive me... I’ll always be with you.”

  
  


___

  
  
  


The ride to St. Anne’s Pier takes half an hour in the rain, and by the time we arrive, the worst of the storm is done, leaving only the mizzling clouds. Baz has been sleeping in my arms since we passed the South Pier, and though I’ve spent the entire ride imagining boat houses and secluded islands and any possible outcome that doesn’t part me from Baz forever, I abandon my wishful thinking once the pier is in sight. 

Baz will be free. And that’s all that matters.

It’s still dark, so the beach is deserted, but in the shallows I see a man standing beside a dinghy in a sailor hat, and my heart leaps in hope. I stroke Baz’s face to wake him, and his eyes flutter open. “We made it,” I whisper to him. “We’re here.”

“Last stop, lads,” says Fiona. “I’m gonna pull us in as far as I can.” She steers the wagon down onto the beach. The horse grunts at the added resistance under its hooves, soft sand shifting under the wheels as we roll toward the shallows. Penny had said to go as deep in as possible so Fiona and I can ease Baz into the water without having to carry him far. 

Which is to say the dinghy isn’t for him. 

It’s for me. 

Because I’m not ready to say goodbye. I want to follow him as long and far as I can without losing sight of the shore. Maybe by then I’ll have worked up the courage to turn my back on him.

Fiona stops the wagon a few yards away from the boat and jumps off her seat into the shallows to pull down the rear flap. Meanwhile, as gently as I can, I ease myself out from behind Baz. 

I’m just getting to my feet to lift him out of the basin when I hear it.

The gun shot.


	11. One Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once, as he was barely clinging to life, Baz asked me how our story ends. 
> 
> The answer is: it doesn’t.

Fiona’s startled gasp precedes the scrabble of fingernails against the sideboard. Then, a splash as she falls into the shallows.

I cast Baz a terrified glance before vaulting over the side into the water, my bare feet landing precariously in the shifting sand. It’s still too dark to see much more than shapes and shadows, but I find Fiona on her side next to the wagon, submerged up to her chest and cradling her arm as she sobs a litany of curse words at the night. 

“Man alive,” I whisper, horrified. From a tear in her shoulder sleeve, something matching the color of her ribbons is dribbling into the waves.

“Simon…” she cries. “Oh, Simon, he feckin’ _got_ me…”

Crouching in the water, I carefully sit her up and press my hand against the wound to slow the bleeding—all the while, spinning my head wildly to find the source of the bullet. I can’t find a bloody soul on the boardwalk, but then Fiona grabs me roughly by the shirt with her good arm and cries, “The _boat_ , Simon!”

The boat. 

I turn slowly to look at the man in the sailor hat beside the dinghy. 

He’s nearly unrecognizable, standing there in naught but a common jacket, undershirt, and trousers. If I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken him for an older version of me. Squinting, I make out the gleam of a small pistol in his hand. 

“Well, damn,” he intones, removing the hat and dropping it into the surf. “I missed.”

“ _Davy_ ,” I rasp.

“I’m impressed,” he says, too calmly. “I knew you had gumption, Simon, but you’re positively heroic underneath that bumbling working class facade, aren’t you?”

“Where is the boatman?” I demand.

He shrugs. “Probably halfway back to the North Pier by now. Enterprising fellow, that one. I got here an hour ago, and five pounds was sufficient to buy his hat and send him on his merry way. You might have chosen a better look-out, you know,” he remarks, stepping toward us. “Dear Trixie struggles with keeping her mouth shut in the best circumstances, let alone when she’s got a gun to her head.” 

“You feckin’ brute! What’d you do to Trixie?” snarls Fiona.

Davy balks, pressing a scandalized hand to his chest. “Why should I hurt Trixie? I’d never be so wasteful. Granted, I don’t envy the dreadful headache she’ll have once the chloroform wears off,” he adds. “A twenty inch-tall sprite like her is a difficult commodity to replace.”

He cocks his gun and aims it at me. “A traitorous apprentice and his fire-breathing co-conspirator on the other hand…”

“You’re a goddamned maniac,” I spit. 

“And you’re a duplicitous snake,” he fires back, dropping his calm veneer enough to glower at me. “I opened my gates to you. Handed you an honest living with food and shelter and a legacy to boot. You came into my establishment to rebuild it, and you dismantled it instead!”

“This were never about you,” I shout. “Keep your damn carnival if you’re so convinced abusin’ yer charges is a noble way to earn your money. I’m just tryin’ to save someone I love from dying in a glass cage!”

“Someone you _love_ ,” he sneers, glancing in disgust at the wagon bed. “It’s the vilest thing I’ve ever heard of, risking your hide in the name of romance with a beast!”

“He’s not a beast!” I shout.

“He is! And you became one yourself the moment you sided with it!” he hollers at me. “Do you think this gives me pleasure, Simon? You could have been heir to everything, with a bright future in London—the ironworks, the slaving, and the iniquities of your station far behind you! Instead, you gave in to a merman’s thrall and rewarded my trust with disloyalty,” he snarls. “Of every punishment I could devise, the most fitting was to let you come this far, believing in your own triumph, and destroy you at the finish line!”

“ _No!_ ” Baz’s voice cries out from the wagon. 

Davy barks a laugh. “ _Baz_ speaks at last! I’m very glad you’re present to see this, merman!” He points the barrel of his Derringer at my chest. “Simon, walk this way, will you? This moment deserves an audience.” 

The sound of Baz’s name on Davy’s tongue fills me with a fury the likes of which I’d only ever felt when I was a scrap with no home. I’d lock eyes with any one of the hundreds of unfeeling people on every corner of Lancashire and nurse a dark, seething rage at their heartlessness. They all wanted me to disappear, too, and there was only one way to deal with them.

I bloody stay put. 

He clears his throat. “Right. Walk this way, or I will finish off Fiona with a bullet to her brain and harpoon you instead.”

“Go to hell, you feckin’ viper,” Fiona growls through gritted teeth.

He tsks condescendingly at her. “I wouldn’t spit fire right now if I were you, dear.”

My mind is racing. The only thing standing between me and Baz’s freedom is a man with a single bullet.

And the reason he hasn’t fired it yet is that he hasn’t got any others. He’s wasting time because we’re both thinking the same thing.

One bullet. Means only one chance.

I need to get him closer. If I can get him closer, then I can reach for the gun. Or if I distract him...

_I could distract him._

“They know ‘bout the forgeries, Davy,” I yell. “A safe full of painted banknotes is a capital offense, you know! Wouldn’t want to lose yer head at her majesty’s request!”

He pauses, and through the dim light, I catch his mustache twitching.

“Who knows? The _attractions_?” he scoffs, though he sounds less confident now. “Those witless guttersnipes wouldn’t dare! I am their provider! Their lives depend on me!”

“You’re right. They’d never cross you,” I agree. “Not ‘less they had a certain key, that is.” 

I dig Ebb’s keys out of my pocket. It’s too dark for him to see they don’t match his set. 

Especially when I hold them up and jangle them. 

Davy’s eyes go wide. “Where did you get that?”

 _When needs must,_ Ebb said...

“Iron’s my craft. Weren’t nothin’ to copy a set o’ keys,” I shout. “Care to see which one’s missing?”

_When needs must, you go ‘head an’ fight._

“Why, you conniving—”

“ _CATCH!_ ”

I launch the keys at Davy’s face. In a blink, he flinches and the barrel of the gun dips. 

Then, with fire in my belly, I run forward, my feet kicking up the sand and surf, and tackle him about the waist. We fall in a tangled heap into the shallows.

Water is _everywhere_. I’m gagging on it; it’s spraying up into my eyes as we grapple for a foothold in the undertow. I’m on my feet first, but he gets in the first blow—an upward kick to my stomach that knocks the wind from me—and I stagger back a step before backfisting him in the jaw. 

Every movement takes double the effort in the sand and water. We’re like a pair of sloshed sailors, blindly trading blows that glance off our slippery skin and clothes. The kick to my gut set me wheezing, but I push through it the same way I’ve pushed through everything else tonight: by reminding myself that the cost of failing is Baz’s life, not mine. 

Also, I’m a right stubborn bloke when I want to be, just like Ebb said.

Davy’s still holding his pistol—I grab his arm and twist it, hoping he’ll drop it into the water—but he jams his elbow into my spine and sends me face-first into the waves. 

I’ve got my back to him now, which is exactly where I don’t want it to be. Stumbling forward, I try to balance myself, but I trip and land on the side of the dinghy instead, knocking it loose from its anchor in the sand. It’s starting to drift on the outgoing tide with me hanging off of it.

“ _Simon, look out!_ ” Fiona screams. I don’t need to turn to know what’s behind me. I can hear every splash as he strides closer. 

Coughing and heaving, I scour the boat for a weapon. After all those years bladesmithing in suffocation, I never thought I’d wish so hard for a sword in my hands.

Laying atop the nets and harpoons is a long wooden oar. 

That’ll do.

What happens next happens quickly. His hand is at my collar. He rams the pistol into the back of my head. My toes dig into the sand...

With both hands on the shaft, I spin around and, with a resounding THWACK, strike the oar across Davy’s face so hard it makes my palms burn. The gun flies from his hand; I can't see where it lands.

He’s doubled over. Blood drips from his nose. 

I watch with my heart in my throat as he lurches away from me, topples backwards onto the sand, and stays there.

There’s no time left to lose. 

I stagger over to Fiona and help her to her feet. “Are you... all right?” I pant, inspecting her arm. 

“I’ll be fine. Go get yer darling,” she hisses. 

I nod and splash my way around the end of the wagon bed. After scuffling with Davy I'm breathing air in sips, but, so help me God, _nothing_ else is going to interfere tonight, not even my lungs. 

Climbing into the wagon bed feels like scaling a mountain, but I forget my exhaustion as soon as I see him. 

“Baz…”

He’s hunched over, clinging to the side of the basin, his relief at the sight of me wringing tears from his eyes. 

“Neptune’s beard,” he whispers. I kneel beside him and he pulls me by my shirt into a surprisingly strong embrace for one who was barely hanging onto life only hours ago. 

“It’s over now,” I rasp. “It’s all right.”

“I thought you were done for,” he cries into my neck. 

“Takes more… than the likes o’ Davy Mage... to scrape off this barnacle,” I gasp. “Come on. The sun’s risin’. We can’t risk someone seein’ you.”

With one foot in the basin, I bend down and pull Baz’s arms around my neck. Then, threading an arm around his waist and another under his tail, I push myself back up to standing. Fiona waits shivering by the end of the bed, the tide up to her ankles; she helps me sit and shift off the edge into the shallows.

I have further to walk than I’d hoped. The tide is beginning to go out, and on St. Anne’s flat beach, it disappears faster than it does in Blackpool. A few steps further in, I set Baz down into the slow waves that lap at my thighs. I watch his face anxiously for a cue—a sign that I've done this right—but as soon as his tail grazes the water, he releases my neck and lies back into it, leaving me to watch breathlessly as he closes his eyes and sinks below the surface.

It’s as if I’d just laid him in a tomb.

Fiona walks up next to me. “What’s he doing?” she murmurs, her hair flying around in the briny breeze. 

I cast her a worried glance. “Your guess were as good as mine,” I murmur back. “How’s your arm?”

“Better, I think. Just burnin’ now. An’ burns I can handle,” she says. “The bullet only grazed me, I reckon.”

“Good. Sky’s getting lighter and you can’t be seen here,” I wheeze. “Take the wagon and tend to that wound. Then go straight to the police. Tell ‘em what you know about Davy and where they can find him. Just be sure to leave Baz and me out o’ the story.”

“All right,” she says. “An’ what ‘bout you?”

“I’ll be fine.” One day, I hope, it'll be true.

I take her hand and squeeze it. “I’m so grateful to you, Fi. You really are bloody fearless, you know that?”

For the very first time, she drops her typical hard-boiled expression to grin fondly at me, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Feckin’ sentimental arse, you,” she laughs, knocking up my chin. “I’m right proud o’ you, lad. Don’t get lost at sea, ya hear?”

“I won’t.” 

She clambers out of the tide, and as I hear the creak and groan of the wagon pulling away, I kneel down into the waning shallows beside Baz and peer curiously through the ripples at him. The sun is starting to rise behind us, and it’s hard to see anything through the rose-coloured reflection of the sky on the water. 

With the tide going out, the water is only a couple feet deep now. I’m just beginning to suspect something’s wrong when Baz sits up and startles me so well, I fall back on my arse into the water. 

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” I croak.

“I’m sorry,” he smiles, wiping the seawater from his eyes. “You were expecting Davy Jones?”

My mouth drops open at the sight of him. Getting back on my knees, I shake my head in disbelief. “You look so… so… _revived._ ”

It’s a miracle. There’s no other word for it. I realise now that I’ve never seen him in natural light that wasn’t moonlight before. In the dawn’s warm hues, his skin is still pale, but radiant as a pearl. His gray eyes have cleared, and through the wavelets, his sapphire and silver tail looks brighter. The black spots shrink before my eyes.

I reach out to touch his face. He covers my hand with his. “Cor, you really are magic, aren’t you?” I murmur.

“Seawater’s healing properties, Snow,” he reminds me. Then he takes my hand from his face and presses it between his palms, his expression anxious. “Love, there’s something you need to know. Something I must tell you before anything else can happen.”

“All right,” I say, “but not here. The beach will be crawling with fishermen any moment. Wait for me at the end of the pier. I’ll be along in the dinghy soon.”

Baz looks reluctant, but he nods. 

He takes my arms and pulls himself up toward my face. I’m just leaning down to kiss him...

_CRACK._

In a blink, the world goes absolutely still. 

I imagine Fiona’s pocket watch, its face frozen in time. 

Baz’s face contorts in horror. 

He’s howling my name. 

I don’t feel pain. Not at first, anyway. The bullet enters my side with the disturbance of a wayward pebble before the burning sensation begins.

It spreads slowly out from just under my ribs. 

“No… Please, no…” Baz reaches trembling fingers around my waist to touch me. When he pulls his hand away, it’s slick with blood.

Haltingly, I turn my head to find Davy on his hands and knees at the water’s edge, soaked through and coated in sand with a great swollen gash across his face. He flings the pistol away, gets to his feet and starts dragging himself toward us.

My breath is running out, but I can’t worry about it now.

“Get out of here, Baz,” I rasp.

He shakes his head fiercely. “Not without you!”

“ _Leave!_ ”

“ _No!_ ”

Davy must be upon us because Baz peers over my shoulder, takes one last look at me, then lunges around me. 

“Baz... ” My voice sounds far away. I can’t breathe.

A wall of water sprays onto me, and I don’t even flinch. I watch, dazed, as Baz grabs Davy by the leg, sideswipes his knees and knocks him into the water. Hunched and snarling, Davy launches himself at Baz’s chest, and they grapple in the waves, seafoam flying. 

“You… belong... to me!” Davy roars.

Baz’s tail comes up and strikes him hard in the shoulder, setting him off balance, but then Davy pounces on a fin and pulls. Baz falls backward into the shallows.

I’m going to swoon in a moment.

A moment is all I need.

I rise shakily to my feet. Force an intake of air.

And I run.

My shoulder collides with Davy’s chest, throwing him back and knocking Baz’s tail out of his grip. Pressing all my weight into Davy, I shout over my shoulder at Baz, “ _Go!_ ”

Davy’s fist lands hard against my jaw.

The last thing I see before the blow sends me into the surf is Baz vanishing into the waves—so fast, he may as well be flying. The dinghy is drifting away.

I’m on my side, the water coming up just above my chin. Davy climbs on top of me, pinning me to the sand with a heavy arm on my neck, his eyes red-streaked and wild. 

“ _You lost me my merman!_ ” he thunders, slamming his knuckles into my still-bleeding wound. The pain lances me through the chest, but I don’t cry out. I can’t.

He grabs my shirt with both hands and pushes me onto my back. I swallow water trying to keep my head above the waterline. 

“You had no right!” he bellows. “I claimed him!” 

“He’s not… for claiming,” I choke.

He backhands my face.

“You wretch! You blackguard!” His spit flies at my face. “I’ll show you what happens to men who fall in love with beasts!”

Still pressing my chest against the sand, he takes my face between his thumb and fingers. 

Then he pushes it sideways into the water.

I let him. I’ve no fight left. 

For two whole days, I’ve had neither sleep nor food nor peace. It’s enough to make strong men faint, and I’m not strong. Not anymore. Now that Baz is gone, this bleeding, broken body is all I have left, and I don’t want it. It feels like it belongs to someone else. 

But I am holding my breath. Just like Baz taught me to. I’m not sure why. Maybe some part of me wants just a bit more time in this world, vicious and depraved though it is. There are some nice things in it worth savoring, even at the end. For all its monsters, life still manages to tempt you with its beauty.

My eyes gaze up into Davy’s blood-smeared, gruesome face, then beyond it. 

To the painted sky. 

It’s peculiar. How calm everything becomes just before your life slips away. 

The pain. The horror. The transient things of the world. 

Delusions, all. 

Dying turns them to seafoam, and they drift away until all that’s left is a vague sense that the tether—the ineffable thread that holds you to your body—is gently unwinding.

Closing my eyes, I wonder if Ebb felt this way when she went with the dawn. I hope she did. 

I hope she’s proud of me.

I hope Baz finds his harmony.

I hope...

Suddenly, I feel a hard jolt. The hand at my face lets go.

My eyes open to find the shining red tip of a harpoon hanging in the air in front of my face. It’s sticking out of the middle of Davy’s chest.

“You want me to speak? My voice will be the last sound you ever hear, you invertebrate trench-dweller,” Baz hisses into his ear. “May your shadow never darken this shore again!”

Davy’s eyes go glassy, but they look at me one last time. 

Not look.

See. 

Then he tips forward into the shallows, dead.

I struggle to lift my head. The water is red with my blood. In an instant, Baz gathers me in his arms.

He’s more glorious now than I’ve ever seen him look. Like the sea opened its arms to him and gave him back his life, the iridescent blues and silvers of his body gleaming brightly in the growing sunlight. I could weep. He looks every bit a prince of the deep. 

Except for the agony in his eyes.

“Y-you… c-came b-back,” I gasp. I can’t stop shaking.

“Of course, I came back,” he says, gently covering my wound with his hand. “Simon, your body’s about to succumb.”

“I—I’m… s-sorry—“

“Hush, now. We’ve not a moment to lose,” he whispers. “Deep breath, love.”

I shake my head. “C-can’t…” I croak.

“You must _try_ ,” he insists. 

I gulp some in, and as if I were no heavier than an empty conch shell, he lifts me to his chest and dives into the surf. 

My trembling subsides the moment the din of the ocean gives way to silence. With Baz’s arms around me, I could be in one of my dreams. 

He’s so impossibly fast. The water parts for us as we surge forward into the sea. I hold on to his shoulders, my eyes struggling to make out anything in the wake of bubbles we leave behind us, but sooner than you can imagine, the shallows vanish, and we’re in open water. 

As he slows, he brings me to the surface to take a breath. I haven’t the strength. My heart’s pounding in my ears, working too hard without enough air to help it. As soon as he lets go of my waist, I slip back under and he dives to catch me.

He doesn’t try bringing me back up again. 

We’re surrounded by blue. Sinking slowly. One of Baz’s hands grips me securely around my back while his other hand gently tips my chin up. There’s nowhere to look except deep into his sad, gray eyes. 

I touch his lips, grateful for the sight of him. I can go peacefully from this savage world if his beautiful face is the last thing I see before my lungs finally give up and the depths claim me.

I want to kiss him, but I’m too weak. He must read my mind because a moment later, he wraps himself around me and presses his lips to mine, our faces lost in the swirl of his raven hair. His mouth doesn’t feel so cold now—whether it’s because I’m in the water, or because my blood’s run out, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. 

He’s home.

Above us, the light filters through the water like the first rays of sun after a storm. In the stillness of the ocean, Baz takes hold of my chin, opens my mouth while it’s still to his lips. His tail curls itself tightly around my legs.

And he breathes into me.

I go rigid. He’s done this before—he gave me his air the night we made love—but his breath is made of water this time, and my body doesn’t know what to do. 

Involuntarily, I resist. I’m gripping his shoulders. I can't push him away.

That’s when I feel him in my mind...

_Don’t be afraid. Breathe deep, beloved._

He goes back to kissing me, deeper until my lips part again. With his hand on the back of my neck, he pours his breath into me and I take it in this time, the pain sharp and instant as cold water displaces all the air in my lungs. 

Baz’s arms are like steel, holding me fast, his hands rubbing gentle circles into my back to calm me. I release my frightened grip on his shoulders.

He has me. I’m safe.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I surrender. 

His breath flows in like a river of ice before my body tempers it with whatever heat it has left. As it does, I try to make myself spacious, unlocking the corners of my chest to make room the way he’d taught me. Once I’ve taken all he has, he sucks in, and it forces an exhale from my lungs. I feel it all leave me, the last of it escaping in a stream of warmth. 

In the pause before he tries again, I find I’m desperate for it. I’m suffocating without it. Once again he pushes his breath into me, and this time, instead of pain, I feel relief. Bliss. Like life itself is passing between our lips.

The sensation isn’t all that’s different. 

I’m changing. 

The burning in my side has dulled. The heavy ache in my limbs has quieted as well. As Baz draws an exhale from my lips, every inch of me feels lighter, infused with something I don’t have words to describe because I feel it everywhere—inside and all around me. 

My next inhalation is my own. I take his face in my hands and pull Baz’s breath into me through his mouth.

I’m dizzy. Delirious.

Entwined with him under the water, I think about the currents. Only now that I’m finally out at sea do I realise they’d pulled at Baz and me both. They’d guided my steps gradually toward the ocean before I’d ever seen his face, luring me to Blackpool as soon as I’d lost Ebb, my anchor to the shore. I think about those endless nights devouring every word Baz said about the sea until my dreams were flooded with saltwater. How naturally I took to swimming once he’d decided to teach me. I fell in love with both Baz and the ocean at the same time because somehow I always understood they were one and the same. 

The sea chose me. That’s what he’d said. 

How had I not seen it? How much of my life—my labours, my pain, my joy—had been carefully arranged to steer me into his arms? How long has Baz known? If the sea did choose me, had Baz always been waiting for me to make my choice as well? Or had he learned the truth at the end just like I had? 

All this time, I’d thought I was freeing him. 

We keep at it, sharing a single breath between us, until eventually the strength returns to my body. Until my head clears. Until Baz finally pulls away to fix his piercing eyes on me and waits.

He’s still holding me when I take my first breath of ocean.

I marvel at him. And at myself. 

On the outside, nothing looks different. At some point, my wound closed, and that was all. But inside…. 

Inside, I’m _infinite_. Like the invisible cords that held me prisoner in my own body have dissolved into the sea. Like gravity released its power over me. I breathe more freely underwater than I ever did on land.

Beaming, Baz cradles my cheek, and to my astonishment, he feels _warm_.

I wrap my arms around him. Ebb's cross floats between our hearts.

 _Are you my captor or my savior?_ I ask him in my mind.

He smiles, and as he bends to kiss me, I hear the words my heart has known since the very moment I first beheld his princely face from behind a cage of glass and iron.

 _Son of Neptune,_ he answers _, I am your harmony._

  
  
  
  
  


**EPILOGUE**

  
  
  


I remember once sitting with Ebb on a hillside in Lancashire overlooking the sea. I was still a sulky scrap and mute at the time, but she called me ‘little goat’ and asked me if I wanted a story. I said nothing. She told it anyway.

It was the tale of the knight and the dragon. How the knight had sought the beast out to destroy him, only to discover that beneath his knightly garments—his armor and weapons and colors—he and the dragon were one in the same. I never expected her parable would foretell my own path up the proverbial turret. That I’d find my match and lifelong companion in a creature I’d been told to fear.

What makes a man and what makes a beast? Is it his trappings, the vestments of civility and wealth that salvage a body covered in scales? 

Ebb would’ve said it was in his heart. _A man who makes monsters of everyone ‘round him is afeard of the monster in hisself Simon,_ she’d said to me on that hillside. 

And those monster-men are all around.

Dear Ebb dedicated her life to saving young souls from a crucible designed to turn our hearts to iron. She rescued so many of us before we had a chance to steep in the smoke we breathe as soon as we’re born to the soil. She knew the world could suffocate compassion out of a child, and in its place birth something more dreadful than anyone could imagine. 

Maybe that’s why my lungs never worked right. Maybe I was never meant for the land to begin with.

The currents knew. They had a different plan for me all along: a destiny leagues away from fire and ash and soot and molten metal, with a love as deep as the ocean and a merman in my arms. I feel their pull as powerfully now as Baz ever did. 

Once, as he was barely clinging to life, Baz asked me how our story ends. The answer is: it doesn’t. Maybe you think I shouldn’t have given up mortality on the shore for an eternity beside him. Rest assured, I have no regrets. 

I am more myself than I ever was. And I’m never alone. 

If you’re the sort who needs to see to believe, come to the pier on a clear night when the tide is in and the moon is full.

Look for me.

I am a wave on the water. 

  
  
  


_The end._

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting on this project. It’s meant so much to me that others were as invested in this story as I was. I appreciate you all!

**Author's Note:**

> NEW: [Check out the Spotify Playlist for this story here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6kbwalDsHcCHPNEwjY1r3m?si=QOGkCBDfRDCqfKKTI_oULQ>Listen%20to%20the%20Spotify%20Playlist%20for)
> 
> Infinite thanks to Mr. Mudblood428, [Penpanoply](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penpanoply/pseuds/penpanoply), [TBazzsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artescapri/pseuds/tbazzsnow), and [Fight_surrender](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fight_Surrender/pseuds/Fight_Surrender) for their wonderful beta help, and to the marvelous S.E. Bouvier for Brit-picking!
> 
> All art was drawn by me in ink and oil pastel, inspired by late-Victorian period illustrations. Come see more at @mudblood428 on Instagram, @vscrivanokelley on Twitter, and [vkelleyart](https://vkelleyart.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. :)


End file.
